Zelma’s Trip

Algarobbo is about an hour away from Santiago and we left plenty of time for Mum and Dad to get into the airport on time.  Once in the car park the guy from Trekker, where the van was rented from, turned up as expected at the right time and we did the handover.  It was sad to see the van go as we had become quite attached to it.  It had also worked so amazingly well from having everything we wanted in it to driving easily and being economical.  Sadder than seeing the van go, however, was seeing Mum and Dad go.  Part of me felt like I should be going with them and felt very odd at being left behind.

I was though, sob sob, and headed back into Santiago, vanless and parentless.  I decided to treat myself and stayed at a three star hotel.  Although I did later find out that it fell into the top end of my budget as it was in a distinctly dodgy area of the city.  Nothing untowards happened, I was just asked why I had chosen to stay there and was told it wasn´t a very nice area by someone.  Anyway once checked in and showered I headed into the city.  I went to the Plaza de Armas and had a Gin and Tonic prior to buying some earrings and sunglasses from street traders.  At a slightly loose end I thought I would go back to a restaurant I had been to the last time in Santiago.  Somehow, I blame the overly strong measures, it managed to become a late night.  I met up with a fun group of people, one of whom spoke near perfect English, and ended up going to a club and a party in Santiago prior to getting back to my hotel in the wee hours.

On the Saturday I checked out of the hotel I was in as it was only really a one night budget option.  I headed across town and ended up in a residenciale in the Paris Londres area a little way away from where I had been when I first arrived in the country.  The rest of the day was pretty chilled out and involved more pottering around the city centre.  I also tried to figure out what I was going to do, or rather where I was going to go, for the remainder of my time in Chile.  I originally wanted to head to a horse farm in Pucon where you can also study Spanish but decided it was quite a long way to go when I had to be back for my flight and also that going that far South would mean it was colder.  I decided the best thing was to sleep on it, to weigh up my options, and had an early night.