From SA to Toronto to Paris...and then??

Home is…don’t dwell on it too much, not at all preferable. Anicha… Start again, head up, eyes wide open, senses tuned in and go. Focus on the story, my short story of a chaotic few weeks from Chile to Colombia to Canada to France. 

After a very chilled four days in Coyhaique, Northern Patagonia, we took an 18 hour bus ride to Punta Arenas in Southern Patagonia, where we had just enough time to pop out for lunch. We found a place a couple of blocks from the bus station called Be Happy Cafe, and it was one of my favourite meals in all of Chile.

Back on the bus for a three and half hour ride to what would be our home base while in Southern Patagonia, Puerto Natales. We bought the standard 3-day pass online to hike Torres del Paine park and for three straight days we woke up between 5:00 and 5:30 to walk 1 km from where we were staying to the bus station where we’d catch the bus to the park entrance, a little less two hours away. We were originally staying in a place (#1) much closer to the bus station but it was so cold with little heating in the common areas and no heating at all in our room. After one crappy night night there we scrambled to find another place (#2) which was 1 km away. So, three days of waking up super early, walking a km to the bus station, long, tough hikes all day, then ending up back at our place at around 10 pm. We were pretty wiped after it all but what a friggin awesome experience. 

Before beginning our third day of hiking, we checked out of place # 2 and walked that 1 km with our main backpacks, checked them at the bus station, and then we were off to Torres del Paine park. When we returned, we picked up our backpacks and headed to place # 3, a lovely hotel/hostel I had managed to find that was really close to the bus station for our last night in Puerto Natales. It was a great (and warm!) place, and the staff allowed us to hang out there with our luggage until the evening. We had a 9 pm bus to the Punta Arenas airport where we had a scheduled 3:50 a.m. flight the next morning for Santiago. It’s a popular route and there were other times available, but of course at a much higher cost, so we decided to embark on this little overnight airport adventure. We didn’t know how much of an adventure it would end up being and how valuable the VIP Pacific Club Lounge could be though.

We had been pretty lucky with the weather when we were in Southern Patagonia, but our luck ran out at the airport. Fog began rolling in overnight, and flights started getting cancelled at around 1 or 2 a.m. Our flight was supposed to start boarding at around 3 I think and everyone was on edge, looking at the screen, listening for an announcement, trying to wrest information from the airline staff…finally it came. Our flight was cancelled and we’d automatically be put on the next available flight. We weren’t too worried because we knew there were many flights every day and apart from a couple of small glitches, we had our confirmation for the next available flight, 2 p.m of that same day.  That’s when I remembered that I had 3 passes left connected to my credit card that gives me free access to these “VIP” type lounges in airports around the world, and sure enough this airport had such a lounge. So we relocated to the lounge and enjoyed free food and bevvies and comfortable loungy seats until we were finally able to fly out at about 3 p.m. Yah for credit card perks!  

So Gi and I fly to Santiago and have a nice last day and night there, including another one of our best meals. We take a bus to the airport the next day for our flights back to our respective destinations. Gi to Madrid and I to Toronto. We’ll meet soon in Paris to celebrate her 40th and hang at her parents for a while before hitting the road again. I came back to Toronto to catch up with family and friends, see my beautiful new (like one week old new!) grand nephew, Wells Christopher, and do a bunch of shit. The main thing was picking up my motorcycle battery that I had left plugged into a battery tender at my apartment, putting it back into my motorcycle that was in my sister and Chris’ garage, get it started up, take it around the block to make sure everything worked, and then deliver it to Courtice, ON. Since that was the day another snow fall hit Toronto, which I had anticipated would be a possibility, this being Canada and all, had already enlisted the help of my friend Phil who drove in from Montreal with his pick up truck. We loaded it up and in the snow drove to Courtice where we left it at a shipping warehouse. From there it was eventually loaded into a container, put on a train and it’ll be shipped to the port of Montreal any day now. Assuming it doesn't get stolen from the notoriously corrupt port, on or around April 4, it’ll be on a boat headed for the port in Bremerhaven, Germany where it should arrive on or around April 18. 

Because life, especially when you’re busy doing stuff, throws you a few curve balls, I had to deal with a crushed cell phone in Toronto (RIP my sweet S20+5G, the last of the Samsungs with SD card removable memory), a Chilean cold I brought over and passed on to at least one friend…sorry Beth!, and while in Paris, I ate something bad and have been pretty sick for the past 3 days. 

I expect to be fully recovered within a day or two and ready to experience Paris in the spring time. Anichaaaaa...🙏Læs mere