A Minor Stop in Chile

Pun intended. I am in Chile and I’m staying here for a few hours. A bit odd really that aged 30 the first South American country I will visit ends up being Chile, in the same year as Northern Ireland played here. Yet I wasn’t at the match. It’s my first time in South America, and my first country here, I’m off to Argentina, Antarctica then back to Chile and Uruguay next!

And what’s more its the first country in South America I have stepped foot in, but one of the last I will actually see. That is because I am merely only stopping here at the airport, on route to Buenos Aires, capital city of Argentina. Though I will also be visiting Cape Horn, The Beagle Channel, Tierra Del Fuego and the Chilean and Argentinian border side on the south tip of the continent so in essence I’ll be a bit longer in Chile. Plus I have a friend in Valparaiso, so time permitting on this trip I might make it there.

Flight food – love it, devour it, eat all of it.

I’ve had a Chilean beer, a Cristal Lager in Ruby Tuesday bar, but didn’t have time to catch a bus into the city, look around and come back. Still, I’ve been stamped into Chile as a tourist and I’m sampling the beer at the airport to start with!

And…Respect to the Chilean Miners, 33 of whom were saved from their trappage recently. I hardly got that sort of news and it was hardly talked about when I was living in Parramatta, but I was aware of it.

It was always a dream to visit South America. And when I finally did, I didn’t even dwell for longer than a few hours in the first country I landed in. Pesky connecting flights…

My flight from Auckland saw me touch down in Chile, South America! There I was in a posh airport far from the South America we all know and stare at. Here were expensive chocolates, more strange currencies and English speaking staff that put my Spanish to shame despite my efforts. The dream though, and aged 30 – I was finally in South America.

My short stay in Chile was because that evening I was bound for Buenos Aires, the first proper destination in South America where I would sleep, party and sightsee. I was up for it. I was scared. I was lonely. I was eager. But I had already two new friends. Or contacts at least.

One was Aggie from Canberra, with ancestry from Poland and now living in Wellington with a Peruvian boyfriend. That kind of makes my story about being a Northern Irish England graduate with a Scottish surname living in Australia seem like simply a mangle of commonwealth gold medals. Yes, even with Northern Ireland thrown in. Aggie was headed for Peru and we spoke intensively on the flight about all manner of things. I said my goodbye to her in Chile. As she waited for her later Lima connection, I was off to Gate 19 for Buenos Aires.

I’m in Chile, but not for long. It’s hot.