I walked the last five kilometers to my hostel in Punta Arenas. My tire was punctured in a severe enough way that I figured it was take me just as long to fix the flat as to walk, and I wasn’t in the mood to play bicycle mechanic.
When I got to Hospedaje Magallanes, the owner looked at me and said “it’s okay, Laura. You are here now.”
So apparently I looked a little worse for wear.
Hospedaje Magallanes and the crew of lovely folks I found there turned out to be just what I needed after a long, hard trip. I’d never met any of them before, but it was like hanging out with all your best pals. Each morning there was a delightful breakfast of homemade bread, yogurt, and actual coffee (no Nescafe in sight!). If you ever go to Punta Arenas, do yourself a favour and check into Hospedaje Magallanes.
On my first full day in town, I had a list of important errands to accomplish. My first priority was getting a bike box.
In Canada, bike boxes are easy to find. You just rock up to a bike shop, ask if they have a box, and they give you one. All bikes that come to the store to be sold arrive in boxes, so they are plentiful and not that many people are running around looking for one.
But in Patagonia, there are a lot more people looking for a bike box than there are bikes being sold. Loads of people end their trips in towns like Puerto Natales, Punta Arenas, and Ushuaia, and finding a box can be notoriously difficult. If you can’t find one, you have to cobble together your own out of other boxes, which is not only annoying and time-consuming but sort of stressful. If you don’t fancy yourself a master box-builder, who knows what will become of your bike in its makeshift box on the airplane.
So I went and drank a fancy coffee (I love life), and then I went in search of a box. I went to the closest bike shop. The door opened with a jingle.
“Necesito una caja para una bicicleta,” I announced hopefully. Was I using the right form of para? Or should I have said por?
“No tenemos,” they shrugged apologetically.
Strike one. But I don’t give up that easily.
I walked eight blocks to another bike shop.
“Tiene una caja para una bicicleta?”
“Ahh! Cajas!” the employee said, covering her face with her hands. The bike box situation seems to be a bit stressful for everyone involved.
She made a phone call. A bit of rapid fire Spanish later, and she hung up. “Tenemos una caja.”
“Solo necesito una!”
And so I left with my box, and carried it on my head all the way back to the hospedaje. A miracle. A long-awaited stroke of luck.
I couldn’t get any official sorts of packing materials because the only store that had them was very far away with no good transit options (and I was too lazy to attempt fixing my flat tire), so I bought a bunch of dish cloths at the dollar store and got some free cardboard at the supermarket. With supplies in hand, I set about packing my bike up as best I could.
When I was finished with my MacGyver-ish packing job, I set about chilling in Punta Arenas. My flight wasn’t for a few days yet.
One of the highlights of Punta Arenas was my visit to Reserva Nacional Magallanes. I was invited by one of my dorm-mates, Miriam. We headed out on a public bus (300 pesos - the cheapest thing in Patagonia), and arrived in a nearby landscape of rolling hills and gentle forest. The landscape was graced with brilliant fall colours, and it felt like being in a fairy tale. On a small ridge overlooking an autumnal valley, we ate mayonnaise-heavy sandwiches and appreciated the subtle beauty of the area. It was different from Torres del Paine and the Carretera Austral – no dramatic peaks towering over the landscape, no icy glacier toes peaking from beneath stormclouds. Just leafy little trees and the occasional view out to the ocean. A place for seaside hobbits, perhaps.
We started walking back to town because the next bus wasn’t until 5, but shortly into our walk some Chilean men in a van asked if we wanted a ride. We got a lift back into town, and I once again wondered at the limitlessness of Chilean hospitality.
After a blissful few days spent with my new friends Miriam, Koy, Silia, Kelly, and others, I headed for the airport. Arriving in Santiago, I made my way to Yogi Hostel, which I chose based on its pictures of open, airy spaces and their willingness to let me leave my bike there while I visited Vicuna for a few days before my flight home.
But once again, I woke in the night. My face was swelling. There was a perfectly round lump above my left eyebrow, like someone had slid a coin under my skin.
Why is this my life, I thought to myself as I stared into the bathroom mirror.
In the morning, the entire left side of my forehead was swollen. On the upside, significant swelling is a great way to temporarily get rid of wrinkles. I also had big lumps up and down my legs, and a swollen finger. I was at the point where I figured it was just Chile things and so I carried on with my life.
But then the hostel summoned me to the front desk and informed me that they had realized there were bedbugs in my room. And that was the moment when I lost my mind.
I’m not a person who gets mad or yells at people, so basically I just cried while the hostel staff stared at me in horror. I tried to explain that the trip had been really hard overall and this felt like a straw breaking the proverbial camel’s back, but my point didn’t really seem to land. They asked me if I wanted a refund or they could move me to a different room or give me a free night, and I said I needed a moment.
So I sat in the hammock in the front yard. Woe is me, I thought to myself tragically. I think I’m allergic to bedbugs, I concluded as I put bandaids on my swollen legs to stop myself from scratching. Is this what it’s like to get Botox? I wondered as I probed my swollen forehead with my fingertips.
Bedbugs are never ideal, but in this case they kind of thrashed the end of my trip. I was originally supposed to head to Vancouver on my way back to Saskatchewan, but with a recent bedbug encounter, none of my friends in Vancouver wanted me to stay at their houses anymore. This was quite understandable. Not being able to afford a hostel or hotel in Vancouver, I set about changing my flights so I could go directly back to Regina.
By a strange stroke of an odd sort of luck, the time of my original flight back to Canada had been changed by half an hour. This time change entitled me to a free, refundable cancellation. Cancelling this flight and booking an entirely new one turned out to be the easiest option. At this point I was more or less ready to just be home, so I decided to book my new flight for 5 days sooner. I cancelled my trip to Vicuna, and booked two nights in Valparaiso instead, since I didn’t feel like I’d spent enough time there the first time around.
I left my bike and most of my stuff at Yogi Hostel, caught a bus out of Santiago, and spent the next two days drinking fancy coffees and immersing myself in the incredible artscape that is Valparaiso.
Many places are very cool, but Valparaiso may be the coolest of them all. The entire town is covered from top to bottom in the most incredible street art you can imagine. It doesn’t even feel real. I find it to be great supporting evidence for my theory that the world would be a lot more enjoyable if we just put murals on everything.
There are tons of little art studios and artists selling their wares. The town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and has fascinating European-style architecture that is quite different from much of Chile. It also has two distinct sides – the cleaned-up, touristy area and the rest of the city, which is seedy but still vibrant and fascinating.
I wandered the streets. I took pictures. I attempted to draw. I pet unfamiliar dogs, as is my custom. And, upon rounding a corner, I ran into Koy – who I had met just days ago, thousands of kilometers away in Punta Arenas.
As it turned out, Koy had flown back to Santiago the day after me and had decided to make a spontaneous day trip to Valparaiso. Neither of us knew the other was there. And somehow, in the busy streets of Valpo, we had run smack-dab into each other. So we went out, got some Lomo Saltado sandwiches, and chatted about life, travel, and San Francisco. Lomo Saltado sandwiches are actually quite good, but notably they are actually Peruvian and not Chilean.
Finally, the day of my flight arrived. I took the bus back to Santiago, collected my bike and other belongings from Yogi Hostel, and headed to the airport a full 6 hours early because I have no chill. I ate a burger. I waited for check-in to open. I stood in line for over an hour because the airline decided that two check-in staff were more than enough. No one bothered to charge me to check my bike because I don’t think anyone particularly cared about that rule. A little man in a blue shirt wouldn’t let me lift my bike myself. I got on my first flight, which was perfectly on time, and arrived at the Atlanta airport early the next morning.
I spent many hours loitering in the Atlanta airport, waiting for my plane to Calgary. It all started to blur together and nothing felt real anymore. Two more flights later, I arrived in Regina a groggy and disoriented mess.
I waited for my bike and my bag to arrive. My bike was presented at the oversize luggage claim, all in one piece and none the worse for wear. But my bag did not arrive.
Somehow, I wasn’t surprised. It was just that kind of trip.
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