Chile by Name, Chilly by Nature

Monday 21.05.07

The flight from my home town Melbourne into Sydney was business as usual for most with breakfast and newspaper it seems. I'd have to guess McDonalds caters for Qantas these days because I could have sworn it was a Bacon & Egg McMuffin I downed ten kilometres or so above the earth at eight-thirty in the morning. As we began our descent, I suddenly noticed the incredible proliferation of white shirts and suits from nose to tail. I was the only passenger not referred to by the cabin crew as 'Sir' or 'Madam' and every scrap of paper in the vicinity appeared to be an index or speculation of some sort. On one side of me, Miss Market Analyst could see the stocks in BHP Billiton had gone up three cents in the previous day's trading, while on the other side, Mr Company Vice-Manager was reading how it was high time to sell that apartment in Milan in favour of one in Berlin. We landed, and just seconds passed before swarms of PDA's and Blackberries buzzed around the cabin, encouraging me to make large swatting gestures to try and ward off the radiation.

Within a couple of hours I was in another aircraft (courtesy of Lan Chile) hurtling down the Kingsford-Smith tarmac. Curiously, it squeaked like a bicycle from the 1940's and visibly flapped its wings on rotation, and we landed in much the same fashion across the Tasman Sea in Auckland, which was blanketed in thick cloud and pouring with rain at the time. We completed a mandatory walking lap of the glassed-in departure zone and left not long after, to cross the Pacific Ocean for Santiago - capital city of Chile. At around 8pm New Zealand time, it was officially Sunday again, and we had 8000km to go. With fortuitous timing and joined by a brain-wide strumming, the Spanish words and phrases I had learned eighteen months before began salsa-ing their way back as we approached our destination. I could already feel my moustache and eyebrows begin to thicken in earnest.

Mountains loomed bare below, jutting like the tips of brown icebergs out of a dense smog that stretched up Chile's enormous coastline as far as I could see. Further inland the Andes stood, blanketed in winter snow, but for now we would be descending to the capital city. It was a staggering US$56 for an Aussie to enter the country, but thankfully I received a free ride to my hostel with Nang, a Hong Kong businessman I had made acquaintances with on the long flight. Santiago didn't create a great first impression with its buildings unkempt and rubbish strewn here and there in drainage channels or piled in heaps in vacant lots. During our journey into the centre of the city, ruins, slums and stray dogs could be seen at every turn. Barrio Brasil, the downtown neighbourhood where I stayed was nice enough, but the entire town was fairly deserted on the day I was there, apparently commemorating a battle long gone with Peru.

The temperature must have dropped to about two degrees in my room during the night, but thanks to strategically planned en-route nap time, jetlag wasn't much of an issue. Breakfast was a bread roll and coffee, and I departed in the brisk morning air for the airport, bound this time for Brasil. Once airborne, the plane banked east and we left the smog and Chile behind, climbing until we were high over the Andes. As we later soared over Porto Alegre in the south of Brasil, we encountered a huge amount of turbulence. Bucking like a rodeo bull, the Airbus A320 descended to escape the worst of it and as I hung on, I couldn't help but regret I had stowed my cowboy hat in the luggage compartment.

Rio de Janeiro was beautiful even from the air at night, lights twinkling on the rolling hills like silver and gold sugar sprinkles superglued to upturned egg cartons. The hot and sticky outside air was a polar opposite of Santiago's, causing my t-shirt to cling to my chest in unattractive ways. Like my sweat glands, my instincts soon kicked in as I all at once negotiated new money, temperamental caixas (ATM's) and a language I knew nothing about. I was kicked off the first bus because I had no money, requiring a tricky reversal down the stairs (they should equip backpackers with a beeper for this purpose), sending Cariocas (residents of Rio) scattering behind me. I regrouped with fried chicken upstairs, ready to make another attempt at the Cidade Maravilhosa (Marvellous City).

The next bus took me to Copacabana beach in the southest of the city, past high-rise buildings, manicured parks and a game of futebol played on a stretch of sand. In a moment of bizarre synchronisation while stopped at a set of lights, everyone in sight on the bus and off, had their little finger stuck in their ear or nose. I walked up the streets of Copacabana feeling a little like the inside of an empty icy-pole wrapper on a hot day and checked into my hostel, Che Lagarto. A midnight wander about the neighbourhood revealed the footpaths all over were a patterned mosaic of white and black tiles, punctuated with the occasional homeless Carioca passed out on a bed of cardboard.