The lows and the highs

Our excitement bubble was well and truly burst.

We were on the verge of making the most spontaneous travel decision of our trip so far. We’d even forgotten the debacle that was our overpriced Lipton black teas. However, after multiple attempts, we found that the Chilean website we were booking our flights on would not accept our card details. Despite numerous further tries it still wouldn’t work and we were now dangerously close to being too late to get the flight. I wish we could say we threw caution to the wind and went to the airport anyway, but we didn’t, and we resigned ourselves to the fact that we’d have to stay at least another twenty four hours in what was turning out to be an expensive and boring town in the middle of nowhere.

Fed up, we grabbed our gear to head to the LATAM airline offices nearby to try and get the ticket sorted. As we were walking through the local square, we suddenly heard a voice shouting “Charlie Higham” from the other side. Call it serendipity or just plain old luck, but when we looked at where the shout had come from, Hoff recognised one of her old school friends, Kathleen, also clad in walking gear and carrying a big backpack. After a rather stunned hello on both sides, and an introduction to Kathleen’s girlfriend, Gemma, we all stood there laughing at how random a meeting this was and how it came at a time when both Hoff and I were feeling pretty pissed off at the last 24 hours and were in need of some cheering up. It just so happened that Gemma and Kathleen needed cheering up too (Gemma had had a nasty slip and rolled her ankle which had swelled up nicely, causing them to have to abandon the rest of their long planned Patagonia hiking trip). We all agreed that what was needed was a pizza and wine feast that evening to make us all feel better, so we parted ways having decided to link up later on.

Hoff and I continued to walk to what turned out to be a now closed down LATAM office. Doubling back in ourselves yet again, we stopped off at the local tourist information office. They couldn’t book us the flight but did give us the name of another travel agency, so we set off in the direction of the agency to see what they could do. On the way we decided that we’d use the WiFi from the tea debacle cafe to see if I could call the airline and make a payment over the phone. 60 painful and completely pointless minutes later and we were stood outside the cafe, me trying not to throttle the person on the other end of the line and Hoff very cold, bored, and now completely and utterly fed up. So fed up was Hoff that for a moment (it was very brief, maybe 10 seconds), she actually considered going home (as in back to the UK). Once I pointed out to her that to get to the UK we’d still have to get out of Coyhaique, and that this was but a mere blip in our travelling adventure, she soon perked up again and slung her backpack over her shoulders once more, and we headed off.

By this point the local drunks in the park must have thought that they were seeing triple (or that their current batch of home brew was very strong) as we walked past them yet again towards the tourist information to try and find somewhere to stay for the night. There I spent another fruitless 90 minutes using their landline to try and book the flight, which again was a complete waste of time. We gave up and resigned ourselves to the fact that we’d need to get the bus out of the town, and once again (for what must have been the twentieth time that day) put on our backpacks and walked to the hostel that the tourist information had arranged for us. When we arrived we were very pleasantly surprised that it was actually clean and cosy. Compared to the previous night’s pig sty, it was a palace, and once we were in, showered, and had had something to eat, things began to look up. We wandered down (sans bags this time) to the travel agent who confirmed they could get us the tickets, before Hoff suggested that we try (one last time) to get them ourselves. I wasn’t that keen and was sure it wouldn’t work, but for some reason it decided to play ball and we finally had our flight tickets out of Coyhaique (costing me a drink in the process as I had bet Hoff a beer that it wouldn’t work).

The rest of the day (which by that time wasn’t much) was spent doing admin before we headed out to meet Kathleen and Gemma. We had an awesome evening drinking Pisco sours and wine, and eating our body weight in pizza, and before we knew it, it was 2am and we were being kicked out of the restaurant. We agreed to meet up for a coffee the next day and then wandered home, very full, very tired, but very content.

The next day we had a whole day to kill before our flight to Puerto Montt. We decided to take the opportunity to do some washing. As Hoff mentioned in a previous post, with a wardrobe limited to what we can carry in our backs (not very much), you end up wearing the same clothes all the time (and often more than once between washes!), so having clean clothes is a wonderful feeling. We also met Kathleen and Gemma for coffee and cake, then did a little bit of shopping (I finally bought my long sort after Patagonia t shirt) and called home to check in. We ended up back at the same restaurant that evening and then got an early night.

Early the next morning I was up and running around town to collect our washing and a few bits and pieces before we headed to the airport. I got back to the B and B just in time to meet Hoff and to jump onto our transport to the airport, and it’s at this point that I hand over to Hoff to continue our trip north.