The Long Road to Chile

Friday, March 30^th, 2012

After all the hours of last minute planning, we were finally on our way to Chile for Lollapalooza. Arriving sweaty and stressed out as usual before a big trip (stupid train has no ventilation), I met up with Ryan at our gate and anxiously awaited for our departure.

Soon enough, that came and we were cozy in our semi-cama seats. Across the aisle from us were Norwegians that we shot the breeze with for a while. In typical Scandinavian style, they were all blonde and had goofy names like Snu and Magnus.

And while this wasn’t my first 20+ hour bus ride (ßhas that sentence fragment ever been written before?) I started to get a little cracked out around hour five. This was probably due to the fact that I couldn’t even carry on a conversation with Ryan because the movie playing on the bus was hands down the worst movie ever made. I don’t know what it’s called, but if I ever find out, I will kill everybody responsible for its production. I thought that Adam Sandler movie was bad, but at least they didn’t kill every single person and make that the whole plot for two loud hours.

By morning, we were getting close to the border and finally reached the checkpoint. While the drug dog almost knocked me over by hitting me with its tail, virtually nothing happened. It was a quick and easy customs pass through. Something I’d never expect in Latin America…

A few hours later, we were finally in the heart of Santiago. After getting off the bus, I was struck with the “whoa, I think I’m in a different country” feeling until I realized, oh yeah, I AM in a different country. But Chile still speaks Spanish so I knew what was going on, but at the same time I felt clueless. Really, Nikki?

We easily found the subway station near the bus terminal to get to our hostel. While BA’s Subte isn’t horrible, it’s nothing to get excited about. Santiago’s subway, on the other hand—wow. That’s fancy. It’s amazing what a difference a subway can make in your mood. It was nice to be whisked away in slick looking cars with ventilation, clearly marked everything and a bright interior. Trains were coming and going quite often, too. I was thoroughly impressed with the smooth ride and couldn’t help but wonder who takes care of Santiago’s transport sector and how much they spend—the people of BA could really use them—especially with what happened with the Once train incident…

After a quick jaunt, we were excited to get geared up for Lollapalooza. But we had to check in to our hostel first. Easier said than done. We arrived to find a sign on the door that said “no hay lugar”, meaning there wasn’t any more room at the hostel, so they didn’t want to let us in until I mentioned that we had made reservations before coming. And we then proceeded to have a Seinfeld moment: Reservations

The owner told us that while she did have our reservation, she only had one bed for the two of us. She had hoped that because we’d booked the hostel at the same time through the same website that we were a couple and that we’d be ok with just one bed because they were overbooked. 

Nope. We’re just friends NOT looking to get snuggly on a grimy little twin sized bed. Additionally, despite the fact that we said we’d be checking in around noon (which was a lie because our bus showed up 2 hours later than planned…) they still didn’t actually have our roomed “cleaned” yet. But after a half hour of dashing to and fro, we had the situation figured out. But at that point, it didn’t matter either way because we were missing Gogol Bordello. But to get to Gogol, we had to take the subway that 1 hour previously seemed tame enough…