Hotel Caribe in Santiago Chile

SANTIAGO, Chile- Back in Santiago after a 21 hour and 23 minute bus ride from Calama up in the Atacama. I am on my way to Buenos Aires. Well, sort of — I have a difficult time sticking to any one path, opting instead for marking the world with squiggly lines that double back and go every which way rather than nice straight routes of travel. This journey was suppose to be for Patagonia, but I found myself in a desert near the Bolivian border. As such is travel.

Santiago Chile business district

I have been back in Santiago for four days now, staying at my old haunt: the Hotel Caribe, a run down, large hotel filled with character. This is the third time that I have been back to this hotel, this city, in only a couple months of travel. Funny how some places seem to tie you on with a yo-yo’s string: allowing you to go away momentarily before being drawn right back. I have made a nest here at the Hotel Caribe, a base of operations of sorts.

[adsense]I got tattooed, made friends, got mugged, got depressed in these past four days in Santiago. There is a new anchor emblazoned on the inside of my wrist, I am $200 poorer because of the mugging, and my low spirits are unexplainable. Perhaps it is because I have run out of books to read?

Tried remedying my situation by picking up “On the Road.” Never read it before. I suppose this book should be standard teenage reading, I am coming upon it a little late at 21. I hate artsy fartsy writing. I hate artsy fartsy conversation as well. Lets just say that I despise the artsy fartsy — cool dudes making more of a mark with cool talk. We listen, because we find their tactics an expedient way to cool dude status. So we talk too.

Though the book is not bad, I am enjoying it.

I have been spending money like I have it. Lets hope I have enough to stay afloat until Erik gets here on the 25th of November.

Last Wednesday was the Chilean drunkest day of the year — Independence Day or something like that. But I don’t think I saw one person drinking. They were all in their homes, I was outside in the streets without a home, a place, or an invitation. I remained overtly sober.

[traveldeals]

I am theorizing about how the [some rant about global corporate media usurping something, edited prior to publication to prevent nausea in the general readership, March 2011].

I think that I am going to be a writer. When I wake up, that is, as I am too tired now.

———–

22 September 2002

These Santiago Days have been days of nothingness. Just the book, aimless walks, and internet chat sessions. Is this what long term travel comes to?

I am just trying to get back on the bull moose before arrival in Buenos Aires, whenever I happen to get there.

I was warned by a friend here in Santiago that I am going to be hit in the head by a Molotov cocktail if I go to Buenos Aires. We’ll soon find out.