Kissing Chilean soil

Yet another early wake-up greeted us as we prepared to catch the 6:30ish bus to the border. The night before we had worried it wouldn´t have space so we had forced the agency to call ahead and warn the bus it had 11 tourists to pick up in this random village, and so they went off and returned promising it would have space.

Well, it didn´t.

All of us freezing to bits (again) out the front of the hostel, me pissed off from the fucking witch who owned the hostel trying to charge me an insane exchange rate because "it was difficult" for her to change US dollars. Like our fucking situation was any less difficult! Try to tell me to be more prepared next time, won´t you... What a cow.

So the bus is completely full. They start shaking their heads at us, telling us "no, we thought it was 6 people, 5 people, 3 people..." More lies. Most of us girls just stand there crying. At one point the bus staff suggest we could put the backpacks on the roof and us in the luggage compartment - what a joke - and then FINALLY they relent and let us stand in the aisle. The Brazilians stay behind, hoping to get a lift from a random old man from the village. I didn´t feel bad. I needed to get to Chile. Stat.

The people on the bus were pissed off we wasted so much of their time faffing around outside, but once they saw our tear-stained, exhausted, desperate faces, they softened a little. I was given the "seat" in the aisle from one lady, who then sat on her mother instead, and I heard R´s gf J discussing her plight with the ladies that worked on the bus. We were fast earning sympathy. And so we should, they charged us fucking double fare to be standing there.

At the border, it was a quick stamp n pay to get out of Bolivia, then onwards and upwards to Chile. Except that we waited what seemed like forever for the bus to arrive and then leave, it sorting out where to put baggage at the very last moment in true Bolivian style. Finally we were on the move, anxious to get out of no man´s land where we really had no identity, and into a more civilised country like Chile.

At the Chilean border, there were checks for fruits and animals parts, so I declared my favourite feather earring to no protest, and they took out the top 2 items of my backpack in their thorough search of all things illegal. Finding nothing, and probably tainting their own clothes with the stench of mine, they moved me on and I went back to the bus. Then I remembered about my moler tooth I still have in my handbag. I do wonder how that will go down once I reach Australian customs.

But before I boarded the bus, I kissed the ground. Just as I promised I would.

Then it was several more hours drive to Calama, where I hoped to get a bus straight to Santiago. The bus, as with the Jeep the day before, had not protection from the dust and so I was forced to breathe through my jumper most of the ride. I could feel a cough already from the English man in La Paz, I knew this dust would do nothing to stave it off.

We got to Calama around 5:30pm, with another gringo to the pack (an English guy also wanting to get to Santiago), and set off for the cash machines pronto. There, I found I had lost my UK debit card - fantastic - and it was too late to get money manually withdrawn from my account. More tears.

I hoped to be able to pay for my bus ticket with credit card, so I headed - with the Japanese lady, I, in our border-crossing group and English M in tow - to the other bus terminal. We got there and found tickets for a 10pm bus, going from another terminal still (how many terminals are needed in this friggin tiny town, I ask) and then relaxed. M paid me cash for using my card to pay for both tickets, so I now had money to eat with. But it was certainly not Bolivia anymore. This was civilisation. And civilisation meant more money. Dammit. The honeymoon period was over.

We ate and then headed to the other terminal to wait and find the internet. There, I checked my UK bank account, and it looked like the miniscule amount I had left had not been stolen so I now think I just forgot the card in the machine and it had been swallowed again. Nicely done, moron. But now I need to get another card to withdraw that last bit in Australia. What a mission.

And then we settled into our Salon Cama, first class, and boy-did-we-pay-for-it bus. We were in the special section at the bottom, away from the crying kids, bad smelling feet (although it was probably us that smelt) and a far cry from the -15 temps of the previous days. Comfort felt good. And it was to feel good for 22 hours. Even the Spanish dubbing of English films like The Gods Must Be Crazy 2 satisfied me. Nothing like a bit of education while I relaxed. Annnnnd lights out.