Off the island.

There was more that happened in the last few days but there was never time to write in the rush of leaving. One of the best parts of the whole two months was the trip to Santa Clara on Franco and Richard’s boat. It’s just next to Robinson Crusoe, round the back where the airstrip is – inhabited by seals and sea-birds. We found a pink-footed shear water nested under the single park-owned hut, and disturbed numerous crabs and a whole colony of fur-seals while making our way up the cliff. Getting onto the island was an adventure in itself – as in South Africa it was a case of steering the boat as close as possible to the treacherous rocks and leaping off when the sea brought the boat up to the level of the rocks. This time there was the added fun of still feeling sea-sick while doing it and then having to form a chain to get our piles and piles of bags safely off the boat and far enough away from the waves and rock-pools not to get wet. Then there was edging round some cliffs clinging on with our hands while trying to carry large bags, then trying to avoid the occasional huge waves and slippery algae over the flat rocks (most of us failing on both counts), then we (mainly Libby) molested some marine mammals in order to get past them, and finally all our things were carried up the cliff to the grassy plateau where the house was.

Due to most of us failing to keep our feet dry, our hiking boots were piled up in a wall above the newly built fire to fry them. Cooking began as things were unpacked, as did drinking. Unlike the rest of them I am unable to develop any sort of fondess for beer – but the guys had thoughtfully brought along some yummy vodka and orange. I generally blame Franco for giving me more of it than I might otherwise have consumed, all before the lentil dinner was ready. I then spent some time ranting at Franco in very bad Spanish about how beautiful the stars were. And they were – ours were the only lights for miles around – we were in the middle of the ocean with the entire milky way spread out above us! Libby and Richard went off to play with some very expensive night-vision binoculars (for the nocturnal shearwaters that occasionally flew over head making creepy noises) and I waved my socks in front of the dying fire.

When it got late and people were starting to bagsy bunks in the house (apart from the guys who kept getting up to shine a torch at the boat far below and worry about how much water it was taking in) I left my hiking boots on the edge of the now gently glowing cinders and crawled into my sleeping bag and onto a plastic foam mattress. Some time later someone helpfully decided to put more wood on the fire. Going outside Erin was greeted by the sight of meter high flames shooting out from my slowly melting left boot. She bravely kicked it out of the fire while Franco stood in the door way and told me cheerfully (as far as I could understand it) “your shoes are dead!” My shoe was indeed somewhat dead.

By bashing the deformed plastic I was able to squeeze my foot inside and hobble back to the boat. And then all the way back up the hill once we got back to town. The next day’s trip to Rabenaal required the borrowing of Franco’s rather large boots and wearing almost all the pairs of socks I owned. It was just lucky that the great boot melting only occurred near the end of my trip, since shoe shops are not abundant on Robinson Crusoe. On the morning I left I dropped the boots into the large metal bin on the side of the street.

Almost two months after arriving I one again climbed aboard the small plane and headed for the mainland along with Erin and about 20 boxes of live lobsters. Spiny lobster fishing is the main occupation of the islanders and us gringas had been lucky enough to be treated to a lovely lobster soup the night before courtesy of Franco and Richard. As we flew back to Santiago the lobsters probably increased in value by the mile. Needless to say I did not choose to purchase a lobster dinner while in the city. Instead I stayed at a youth hostel and found a market for cheap clothes shopping!

The end of the story for anyone who hasn’t noticed my sudden reappearance is that I’m back in England – just in time for another winter. J But in the mean time there’s blackberries and pumpkins and dew dripping cobwebs in the sun. And here there’s the internet and hot water, tv watching and driving lessons, my mum’s cooking (and my dad’s ain’t bad either) and my brother’s AS work, telephone conversations, familiar faces at parties and a houseful of friends.

I’d now rant about how wonderful my friends are but I don’t want to make them big-headed. So maybe I shall occasionally keep you updated about my life, or give you some interesting things I have written, but I make no promises. All adventures from now on are likely to be of the more mundane variety.

Finding Santiago

In my first terrifying foray into Spanish I had successfully (I think) made a reservation at the Hotel Foresta. After arming myself with more Spanish phrases and then failing to find a baggage enquiries office, my bag had mysteriously appeared on the carousel with all the others, so I took a van from the airport with a few other people in. As we were driving I kept having to remind myself to look out of the window – to see where I was, what it was like. I was in Chile! What was Chile? I had no idea what to expect. I remember those first taxi rides from the airports in Hyderabad and Bombay, how I would always drink in the atmosphere, the experience of India! The only feeling I got from Santiago was that of a city. Just any city. I got to the hotel where the clerk spoke enthusiastic English, a little old man carried my heavy case up in the lift, I tipped him (probably not enough) and finally collapsed on the bed in the small room looking at stripy wallpaper with flowers on.

Having arrived on Sunday evening, I ended up staying another two days in Santiago before flying out. Having found the two other volunteers for the project who were also due to catch the same plane, I set out to find Chile. I found mountains! They had snow on!!!! I may have been illogically overexcited by this, but – there was snow! And they were huge! Just sitting there next to the city! Anyway, I don’t think I’ve ever seen snow-covered mountains before so I thought that was pretty cool. We also found a zoo, in which lived elephants, lions, tigers, two polar bears and some condors in some quite small enclosures. The condors’ cage did not resemble jungle. We found various unhealthy types of food, a posh Italian restaurant that didn’t open till 8pm, cheap clothes that we didn’t have room to buy, museums that were all closed on Mondays and some hummingbirds on a hill. On the night before we were due to leave, after dinner and a hot chocolate, we failed, for some time, to find an ATM at which to withdraw all the money we would need for our 2-3 months stay on the bank-free island. We eventually reached a room of cash machines in the centre of town which you used your card to get into and withdrew some quite large sums of money – I had 200,000 Chilean pesos (about 200 quid) stuffed into my back pocket. It was around 10pm. Coming out of the ATM room I didn’t see anyone hanging around looking suspicious which was reassuring, and we set off back to the hotel. We were particularly wary after an incident earlier in the day when two young guys had run into us from behind (quite hard) and then made off down the street followed some time afterwards by a poor man yelling; they had made off with his laptop and he seemed to have little chance of catching them. Halfway back to the hotel Kelly (who it turns out graduated from APU in 2005) commented that she may have been being paranoid but a guy with a lip-piercing had passed us while we were getting out money and had then changed direction twice and had been following us. Worrying, but he’d luckily disappeared. At the next crossroads a skinny guy passed in front of us then started up the same street on the other side just slightly behind – “that’s him” muttered Kelly. I decided she wasn’t being paranoid. We marched back to the hotel really rather fast, hardly speaking until we got there. We decided that next time we’d get money out in the day time.

On Wednesday morning we left early in a large multi-seater and ended up in a pretty posh-looking lounge in a building round the back of the international airport. In the car park-sized space in front of us were two small planes and a helicopter. The luggage allowance was 10kg so I was charged 25 pounds for the extra 9 kilos of my large suitcase, but luckily not for my suddenly 87kg person. I drank my first latte – it was very nice. We squeezed onto a plane with about 10 seats in the front and the luggage in the back and the pilots visible through the open curtain at the front. I accidentally sat on my lunch, packed into a brown paper bag. Less than half an hour in we had left the coast of mainland Chile behind us.