Aneya & Lauren: The Voyage

Aneya: Ok, ok, we´re finally back! I know you´ve all been waiting with baited breath to read about our adventures, and I apologize for the delay. We´ve been having some internet connection problems at our hostel, and we´ve just now ventured into an internet cafe, and i cannot tell you how good it feels to be online again. The internet is like crack, really (not that I´d know...)

But anyway, we arrived in Santiago two days ago, after a relatively easy voyage. Our first flight was to Mexico City, and we were given an immigration card right away, even before we boarded the plane, which I found strange. Even more bizarre were the questions on the card.

Were we carrying "samples" (of what? Blood?) did we have any "ground" with us? Ground? Lauren and I were cracking up at this, especially since her carry on weighed a ton, and it would make perfect sense that she was, in fact, carrying ground.

Lauren: I told Aneya, that yes, in fact, I had all the ground we needed in my overnight bag to build us our first apartment. It was that heavy.

Aneya: The card also wanted to know if we had more than 10,000 in cash with us, and if so, why? I was tempted to put ¨To make it rain" but Lauren advised me not to. The Mexico City airport was surprisingly modern and clean, and it was almost empty, which was nice. Our next flight to Santiago went smoothly, but Lauren and I were worried about customs, since we have no return flight. Strangely enough, there were no questions whatsoever.

Lauren: Not a word. I was asked no questions, just filled out a small, five-question piece of paper about where I was from, and then stamp, stamp. We were in. It was fantastic.

Aneya: We had to pay $131 to enter the country, then we were taken to the immigration, where the guy, I swear to god, was flirting with me, and I was so out of it I had no idea what was going on. It went something like this:


Him (in Spanish): Ooh look at you. You are from Argentina?

Me: No, from Los Angeles.

Him: Oooh, Los Angeles! You must be angel then.

Me: Que?

That was it. No further questions. A stamp, and a smile and I was welcomed to Chile. Daniela and her father were waiting for us at the airport (which was such a relief) and we were taken to our hostel.

Lauren: It was so nice! Daniel (Daniela´s father) took the day off work, drove us to our hostel, took us downtown, and we began exploring.

Aneya: The hostel is tiny, so small that my bags took up most of the space in the living room. We then had a lovely breakfast with Daniela, and our journey had officially begun! Oh Chile, I like you already!

Lauren: We had a nice German breakfast, in a small restaurant, and our hostel is nice, with old wood stairwell and we have two doors that open to a tiny balcony, but it is so noisy! Moving will prove to be quite a challange. Our combined luggage weighs about as much as we do, and currently everything is spread out over our hostel floor.

More to come.