Return to Santiago

"I'll get this one," Ali returned the favour and purchased two tokens for the bathroom. We are at our 2nd toilet stop since leaving Santiago last night. We have been travelling north accross the Atacama desert and will arrive at our destination at 10pm this evening. A total of 24 hours on a bus! As usual, the long bus ride povided me with the perfect opportunity to write about past trials and tribulations. My second visit to Santiago wasc much different than the first...

When we stepped off the bus I knew exactly what to do and where to go. It´s always a pleasure to return to a familiar environment and our second visit to Santiago was surprisingly better than the first. The past 4 days have been quite intense. Although I never ruled out the possibility, I was not prepared for what did actually manifest during such a small period of time. A romance. I was looking forward to seeing our friends at the hostel again and even entertained the thought of establishing a relationship with one particular member of the group. I never anticipated that it would actually develop into something meaningful. My time spent in Santiago was much more involved because of this and it provided me with a real taste of local culture. For once I wasn´t a tourist. I was a member of a fun group of friends participating in activities that fun groups of friends typically do in a big city like Santiago. These activities mostly involved drinking pisco and cerveza (local liquor and beer) but it wasn´t so much what we did that was different. It was more about where we did it. I was fortunate enough to visit a family house in the suburbs, an apartment in the city, and numerous night spots which otherwise wouldn´t have been on my itinerary. Needless to say, I hardly slept during my visit to Santiago but it felt good. Really good!