Go a-roamin´

The cold chased us north, off of Chiloe, back up the coast to Valdivia, an industrial town on a placid river. The weather was bad though, still cold and intermittently rainy, and we spent most of our time hunkered in the unheatable confines of our hostel. After a night and half of this, Jeff and Alex headed east, to Bariloche, leaving me behind to wait for my bus to Santiago. With a handshake, it was over, and another bit of the old life finished itself. Always with a handshake. My bus wasn´t until ten at night, but it was only ten in the morning, so I had a long lonesome day to spend in shuttered Valdivia. It was Sunday and through custom rather than faith, most of the businesses were idle, closed, and otherwise unwelcoming. Though the weather stayed sunny, the temperature kept dropping in the unheated terminal and I paced back and forth, taking exactly two minutes to shuffle by the kiosks and counters, the bathroom and the door. I had two dollars to spend, two days worth of stubble, and knew no one within an ever-increasing distance. Suffice to say, I had become a hobo.

I had wisely spent all my money the night before, the final dinner of the organized trip, on a delicious meaty burger of some quality. So, as I paced every two minutes, I mentally organized my finances. I needed a degree of food, a few victuals, so I walked to the local market and bought a kilo of bread, a Chilean variety, a hard biscuit-like round loaf.

Had I been anywhere else but Valdivia, in the swamps of the Panatal or Lima or anywhere, the day would have passed with ease. But it kept getting colder, and you just can't lay about in the cold with nothing to do but think about the cold as it creeps around your wrists and ankles. I spent almost all of my money on coffee and internet.

Around four, as things looked most bleak, I simply paid my small fare and read a book in a bathroom stall, fully clothed, just to be in a more tightly enclosed structure.

As night fell and an icy fog rolled in off the river, and the pace of the buses increased, I ate my bread with the secret jar of peanut butter I have more closely guarded than any other possession in my possession. It was delicious, and briefly made me wish for warmer days in the States, away from hostels and hard bread and difficult travels.

Back to Santiago for the third time, and it was marginally warmer. The sad-eyed girl who worked my hostel helped me call Aerolineas Argentinas, but left me on my own when the woman at the other end spoke English. Sort of.

I tried speaking in Spanish, but she'd answer in English, so I'd respond in English as well, to which she would respond back in Spanish. She asked for my reservation code, which I tried to spell in Spanish. Understanding the names of letters in any language is difficult through a difficult medium, and for the life of me I couldn't think of Spanish words that started with any letter of my code.

A distant voice spoke through the receiver: `Sir, are you speaking in Spanish or English.`
I replied, weakly, `Both, I'm...I'm switching back and forth.'

I am a man without a country, without a friend, without language, alone at the end of the world. I made it to Buenos Aires alright.