24/05/2011 (posted 26/05/2011)
To mark the last bus journey of my adventure, the couple sitting behind me snored in the most outrageous manner. Why, oh why, do people go to sleep with their mouth open? I tried to focus on the sounds of the buses engine to distract my ears but the effort proved futile.
And to make matters worse I felt really ill throughout the bus journey, or perhaps ordeal is a better term. I had cold hands despite wearing gloves, stomach cramps and a massive headache and unfortunately, only around 300ml of water which I used sparingly despite having the potential to neck about 5l.
In previous posts, I have talked at great length about the brilliant sleep I have experienced whilst travelling on buses throughout this continent but in a contest of worst sleeps on a bus journey, this would win it hands down. I had no sustained period of rest at all and was constantly uncomfortable - also, in a canny manouvre the guy sitting next to me managed to knock my arm off the coveted middle armrest and put his own in my place.
The swine.
And, to compound my misery I was in the midst of removing my legwarmers from underneath my trousers in the toilet when the bus lurched to the side and I fell against the door, banging it wide open with legwarmers halfway down my legs and almost falling on somebody in the process.
Eventually I arrived, feeling atrocious and desperately in need of either sleep or caffeine to force me awake. Being a Barista, I opted for the coffee option and necked an espresso.
I then made my way to my lodgings. Robert and Ximena (who I stayed with in Temuco) happen to have a son, Alan, who studies and lives in Santiago and said I could stay at his flat so I followed the directions Natalie gave me, taking the metro and then walking a little bit, and arrived. He has a cool little flat and seems like a cool guy, and told me to 'make myself at home' which is awesome.
I wanted to do something so walked to the metro station to head into the city centre. I felt very ill, cold and tired whilst walking and kind of constantly exhausted but I didn't want to waste one of my last days here just moping around in a flat.
Anyway, enough moaning.
I got to the centre and saw one of the cafés I had read about in my guidebook which serves 'Café con piernas' or 'Coffee with legs' - essentially, businessmen go there and are served coffee by women wearing fairly short skirts. I almost went, purely to experience the Chilean culture of course, but decided not to and instead went to another place where, mercifully, the old woman who served me was wearing trousers that covered every inch of her legs.
I then went for some lunch - a salad, I wasn't feeling up to much more - and then chilled in an internet cafe as I had little strength for anything else. Here, I discovered that a mutual friend of myself and Chris White MP has been following my blogs which is awesome to hear!
After my resting period, I went to buy a watch and got a nice Casio one with a leather strap and gold face (not solid gold though). I then went for a haircut, specified my demands and watched a man slowly carve a bowl onto my head until I stopped him and guided him on the length of each specific bit of my hair to avoid a catastrophe. I was worred about another potential 'Baltin moment' (the guy who royally screwed up my hair in Panama) but through my incessant demands, I ended up with a decent cut.
Drama averted.
In the evening, I went to see Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides which was ok but I still think the second is the best of the series. It was in English with subtitles which are easy enough to avoid. However, one annoying side-effect was that the 3Dness of the movie exacerbated my headache a lot and as I made my way home, I felt as rough as a badger's arse.
JG
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