Anyways as most of you have seen on Facebook, I´ve been away on holidays with my parents for two weeks. It started off with a lot of stress as I was meant to meet them in Lima on the 15th of November. I was about to go through passport control and when I got there the woman asked me for my Chilean ID number. I said I didn´t have any and she replied saying I should have gotten one when I registered my visa. Registering my visa? I hadn´t done either of those things, which resulted in me not being allowed to leave the country and a lot of tears. After they took my passport off me and I had calmed down a bit they told me I can´t fly today but will need to go to an office in Santiago to get a letter which allows me to leave the country anyway and then go somewhere else to get my passport back. I had to book a new flight and it had to be leaving on monday afternoon and arriving on monday night as tuesday morning around 4am my parents and I would be leaving Cuzco to start the Inca Trail. This flight cost so much and I had booked a single flight thinking I could just still use my return flight. It would leave at 2pm on Monday so I really had to get everything sorted as quick as possible on the Monday morning.
After booking the flight, I heard from several people you can almost never use the flight back of a return flight when you haven´t used the flight there, so the stress started once again. One guy on the phone from the airline said it was still possible but that I just had to talk to a specialist etc. In the end (while I was in Peru because they never contacted me back, so my roommate had to do all the calling and organising with them) the specialists said it wasn´t allowed, but as we kept saying that one guy had told us it was, we were able to still use it LUCKILY, because of his mistake.
The office on Monday would open at 8.30am and I heard it was always quite busy so I arrived at 7am and saw I already had about 200 people in front of me and the stress began. Well lets just say the following hours were very stressful and with again being close to tears, and being not caring I had a flight at 2pm and having to run from one building to the other, I in the end had everything I needed by about 11am and was in the end able to pass through passport control. That night I finally saw my parents, I made it!!!
We got picked up really early the next morning and we were able to start the Inca Trail with 8 other travellers, 2 guides and about 16 porters who would carry all our baggage, tents, food etc.
These 4 days walking were such a good experience! Lots of muscle ache, feeling dirty, tired and hot, but it was very worth it. The second day was the hardest, with 11 hours of walking and having to climb A LOT, but we all made it! As you can see in the photo above my parents were the only ¨oldies¨ and they did just as great as the others, so good! The last day we got to Machu Picchu and it was so nice to see it and to have the end in sight! Us three all agreed that seeing the Machu Picchu wasn´t our highlight, which it is for some people, but we mainly just enjoyed the whole experience of the hike.
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| Our treat when we were done! |
I am glad we did this because I felt they saw more of Chile by going into the Andes than just seeing Santiago. The second day I needed to go to finally register my visa, which involved 6 hours of waiting and after that we went up the main mountain in the city Santiago itself to have a view of Santiago. After that we went to eat my favourite food:
The following morning we had to get up early to get our flight to Iguazu Falls. After both of our flights being delayed that day to get there, we finally arrived late at night (instead of 3pm) and got into a taxi and the taxi driver gave us an elaborate explanation of the area and also offered to drive us around everywhere the following day so we would be able to see everything we wanted to see in just the one day we had. This was perfect as we hadn´t planned anything yet.
Because of this we were able to leave the following morning to walk along the fall on the Brazilian side and also take a speedboat which went underneath the falls, it was all great! In the afternoon we went to the Argentinian side, which was just as beautiful and ended our evening with lots of wine concluding we had done enough walking the last 1.5 weeks.
After this it was time to say goodbye. My parents would continue to Rio de Janeiro and I would return to Santiago, but fortunately I would see them again soon! The time together was so so great and can´t wait for times like Christmas to spend together with the whole family.
Last Monday I returned back to work and I again haven´t got a lot of work so time passes slowly but it all doesn´t matter as I just have a couple of days left!! My last weekend I will just make the most of the weather (30 degrees) before I return to what I hear is about 1/2 degrees.. brr....
So yes like I said, overall I had a good time in Chile, it was a good experience, but I cannot wait to be home again! To see my amazing friends, family and Philip and to continue my preparations for the wedding! It will take place next August and I will go to Madrid for my exchange from the 24th of January, so we need to be efficient with the time we have. One of the thing that makes me most happy is that I will still see Philip once a month in the 4 months that I am in Madrid, so we will never have to be apart as long as Chile EVER AGAIN haha.
Thank you everyone for all your support in the time I have been in Chile. It has been amazing and heart warming and has definitely helped me when I´ve found my time here challenging. Thank you!
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