There was this one time I thought it was a good idea to try Couch Surfing...in Chile...alone...surfing the couch of some old random man.
Most people's bad ideas stop there.
Mine, have follow through. Through adventure(s) and consequence(s), only to arrive at the same conclusion, that most people begin with-that it's a bad idea and they should be stopped there- frankly, it takes my feathers to be ruffled by life a bit to enable me to circle right back around to see that that idea was indeed, shit.
Shall we begin?
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Chile. Day Numero Dos.
After getting kicked out of Brazil, I was unstoppable. I could do anything. Right? Wrong. There's something in me that just has to get my hands and feet dirty, my knees scraped up, loose a few bucks, have a run in with an official, fight a ferrile dog...you get the picture. This "trying it my own way," ensures to me that "said outcome," is "said outcome" that all other folks have been telling me.
*See most other people's ideas stop there.
I'm just what you'd call a hands on kinda gal.
Anytime I start out on a traveling feat, I have fears just like anyone else. I want to wet my pants, I feel as though I've forgotten everything, like I may say the wrong thing and get kicked out of the country (oh wait, that's already happened), or perhaps, that I'll be taken (if one more person tells me that whilst traveling, watch out, I will "take" you, Liam Neeson and all). I digress. It takes me a hot second to warm up to what I'm actually getting myself into, and luckily, I never quite know because I don't let myself. To have everything mapped out from start to finish takes away the adventures that lie inside the adventure itself. There is magic that can only occur between the spaces that are left open for things to be created. And by that, my spontaneity provides a veil of cloudy mystery that keeps me out of the dark alleyways of my mind, allowing me to move forward in all of my party plans, and to not get caught up in the what ifs (this is different than naivety).
Morning numero dos in hostel: I was in contact with amigas of amigas as I was planning to adventure my way to Valpariso, the sea side town notorious for it's colorful rooftops and graffiti filled everythingness. My heart sang. My brain, on the other hand, walked me through one billion and one peculiar reasons as to why I shouldn't pack up my tuna salad and bus hop that afternoon into a mystical fairyland of unicorns, and strangers, an adventure promising of a color coma. The only "valid" reason that ensued was that it was after 1 PM and my early birdedness chirped that it was far too late to accomplish any adventures that day, because evidently, adventures retire thereafter. See *fear by *paralysis, and *thatisbullshit. I told you I was still semi-human. My comfort zone was being a real pain in the ass that day, death grip onto the foothold of safety it had latched upon in Santiago, like tick to my dog's head after a crispy forest hike- just not cool. Unfortunately, this one wouldn't die from lighting a torch to it's ass.
With eager conviction after all the self induced hype, I kicked my own ass up out the hostel, and B-lined for the bus station, tuna salad in tote. I arrived only to be sandwiched between the shoddiest trouble makers in the entire cue, such is the story. Fortuitously, the man standing in line behind me just so happened to be the Chilean version of Shack. Boom. I was safe. Regardless, alborotadores uno y dos probably should have been fearing me more than what I had to fear coming out of them. I reckon they were just a bit loco. I, on the other hand, see *taken and *Ihaveablackbeltineverything. No, really.
I snake through the man made human swamp of a cue and purchase my ticket, searching for the magic school bus that was to sling shot me straight into my wildest Harry Potter dreams. Found it. I settle in, stretching my long, lanky legs (I'm 5'6" with a complex) over the adjoining two seats, and happily crack open my home made tuna fish mash, prepared hours before departure, successfully stinking up every corner of the bus while loosing my fork down the aisle in my eager excitement to feast. As I'm about to take my first bite, fingers knuckles deep in smelly tuna mush, sir blonde hair blue eyes is standing over me. "I guess he wants one of these seats," I think to myself. "I'm the window seat," he says. Nailed it. I say "Hola, si."I'm not sure if I was more pissed out that I had to stop eating, that I had to wipe my fingers on the seat and get caught in the act, or if it was that I was going to be squishing myself into one seat when I just had all three. Probably that.
I move out of his rented seat and sprawl about out in my confined territory. Talk about a bird in a cage. I guess the whole "hola, si," thing made me sound as though I was proper Chilean. This I knew because he proceeded to speak to me in some broken down Spanish that I patched together to mean "are you Latin." His effort was definitely an A plus. I thought I would let him struggle a few seconds longer, because yes, sometimes it is a bit entertaining (a lot) to watch the struggle, in the most endearing sense, waxing and waning through the difficulties. I've been in his shoes one too many times so it was my turn to get a little chuckle out of it. I started to feel bad about myself as a person as I let him conduct his struggle bus right into my "I'm American," comment. Clearly, I had no feelings and was emotionless. Thankfully, he laughed. Turned red. Probably would have liked to say something colorful to me or punch me in the face. Luck would have it that, because he was Canadian, he just wanted to be my ally. I don't know if Canadians are happier to be Canadian or people who come into contact with them are happier because they have an instantaneous friend. This, I'm unsure of. Further experiments need to be conducted. Please check back later.
We arrive to Valparaiso, happily chit chattering into the depths our or new (obvious) friendship. When we were getting off the bus, we encountered that awkward moment...like, do I ask him to hang out or does he ask me- since we are literally at the same destination, planning to explore the same amalgam of culture and art, not to mention, the few token English speakers in the place, we may as well continue onward...kind of moments. I'm sure you've all experienced them.
Flashback.
Earlier that day, I reached out to a few friends of friends to try and see if I could sort staying the night in this new land of colors and seashore, I mean, why wouldn't you? I successfully organized a place to stay and an adventure that would load the next day, cupcakes, dinosaurs and all. One hour later, plans cancelled and I have no place to stay. What came to mind was my desire to utilize couch surfing, something I had signed up for years prior, but never experienced in its full derelict potential (except for that one time in Philadelphia with Carly, at that Bong House- we will save that for another time). Tonight was the night. I logged on, sent a handful of messages to the humans who looked somewhat sane, remember, taken is a thing. Finally, I get into cahoots with sir oldmansalot. He tells me I can stay, writes me out step by step directions to his crib, and sends me his digits. I was set.
Fast Forward.
Canadian blue eye blonde hair and I spend the day exploring and scaling the sides of Valparaiso. No one tells you it's literally like trekking up the side of a the Empire State Building, without legs and arms- difficult - just way gnarlier. We take a shot of espresso for good luck, and extra pep as we set out for the voyage. It's funny the topics that are dabbled into when doing random things with strangers met hours prior. I come to find he is scored it big in the Guiness Book of World Records for eating the longest hot dog. Just kidding. He played Fifa for some bogus amount of hours without sleeping or eating. Or maybe not sleeping and eating the longest hot dog. I cannot remember the specs. Not important. After drooling over never ending graffiti, splattered over every street, stair, dog, pole, house, and child, the day came to an end as the sunset upon us as we dined on some sushi, washing it down with warm saki. He said we should head back to the bus as the last one was to leave in about forty minutes. As I typically do, I don't always tell my full plan, instead, I go with the flow and buy myself time as I sort thought what the fuck am I actually doing in my own head, while on the outside looking composed and gung-ho for 'said' plan. If only that were the case. We arrive at the bus station. I drop it on him. "I'm actually going to be taking a taxi up the coast to surf the couch of some old man I have never met before." He gives me the Dad stare and goes on to give me a lecture, basically pushing me forth to the bus. I don't know if it's the adventure or the unknowns that allure me, but dang nabbit, I found myself bidding him farewell and jumping onto the colectivo holding about four thousand more humans that it should have been.
I ride into the setting sun, kind of freaking out as to what the fuck I'm actually doing. Now that the sun is setting, I wasn't feeling oh so confident about this decision to face the night and a strange man...not to mention, I didn't have GPS, the best Chilean Spanish under my belt, or a pistol...The colectivo squeaks and turns and rattles along the seaside, it's beautiful. After about twenty minutes I feel like something just isn't right as we had passed signs of Vina Del Mar, the town I thought I was to stop at. I look over to man next to me and mumble 'where are we' and 'how close is that to Vina?' "Basically," says dude, "you should have gotten off ages ago and now you're going to be getting off in a very dangerous area. Wait five more minutes and you'll still be getting off in the middle of nowhere, but maybe your life will be less endangered." It's black as midnight might I add.
I hop off the colectivo and walk into the nearest petrol station to wee, get some water, gather my thoughts, my life, and try to figure out what the hell to do next. I head back outside and stand at the bus stop just figuring that I should be able to call old strange man and he will walk me through the directions. There is a strange man at the bus stop that keeps looking at me. Naturally, I think he's going to kill me. He walks over. Naturally, he doesn't kill me. He chats with me and asks where I'm headed. I tell him Vina. He tells me that I've overshot it by at least twenty minutes. No shit Sherlock. He offers for me to stay at his place but quickly follows up with no sorry I mean you're a young lady and that's not right. I WOULD offer you my place but if someone were to do this to my daughter, that wouldn't be right either. He asks where I'm staying. I tell him a friends house. Push comes to shove as I'm not able to reach this 'friend' on his mobile. Then more truths come out, that I'm actually using a website to be an active hobo and rest my body amidst his couch for the exchange of my safety and life. No big deal when you look at the reality of the situation. I thought he was going to ring my neck and sell it at the Saturday farmers market. He rips me a new one and tells me how stupid it is for a young lady to be trusting of someone she has never met. To go on this trek in the middle of the night to try and find someone's place that isn't even answering their phone...Ok Dad, I get it.
We run into a lady and ask to use her phone, that perhaps he's just not answering a number he doesn't know. It's 1 AM. He still doesn't answer. Next thought. Pseudo dad bus stop man tells me I should stay at a hotel. Because I am stubborn and the sheer fact that I was going to be saving all the money surfing an old man's couch, there was no way in hell that I was going to pay ANYTHING to stay over night somewhere I didn't even need to be staying over night at, not to mention, I had a safe bed just hours away in Santiago. No, thank, you, sir. We arrive at the bus station. He tells me that I could probably get a bus ticket and head back to Santiago. Four bus ticketing windows later and we find out that everyone has sold their final tickets for the night. Fuuuuuccckkkk. My life.
It's time to play dirty and pathetic. Old man walks up to the bus driver for one of the lines. He says that he will pay him to take me back to Santiago. Folks! We have ourselves a deal! A measly $50 later and I'm rollin high in the passenger seat of this huge ass bus. Not going to lie, I snapped a photo and felt kind of cool. And tired as a gook. Moments later I'm asked to move to the upstairs seats as I guess I didn't qualify to be co-poilot. Not surprised. I snuggle into my seat, happily knowing I have no neighbors. The bus stops. Now, I have a neighbor. He's acting funny. There's something about it that rings "bodily flirting" to me. You know, the type- for instance- on a plane, that tries to use your shoulder as a pillow and your lap as a kneeding post? Yeah, that kind. Lo and behold, he pretends to pass out and seconds later his hand is grabbing my leg. I punch him square in the face and am rescued by the co-pilot, I guess we've arrived in Santiago. Ok, I didn't punch him but fucking hell mate, you're so lucky I didn't.
The bus dropped me off at the bus station in the city center as it was taking a right and I was a 'favor' drop off. It was kind of awesome. Freaky, to be arriving in the city at 3 AM and not necessarily knowing what that meant. Oh well. Bring it on. It was advantageous that all week I was using the bus line so I knew just what bus to take to get me home safely. Finally, I arrive home, 4 AM and whaddya know, old mate creepsalot sent me a message asking where I was and that if I wanted, I could come tomorrow. Are you kidding me? I know a murder when I hear of one. You will not fool me old man. I just dodged your ice chambers and you will never hear from me again. I swiped left and deleted that shit real quick as I snuggled into the warm hug of safety that greeted me in the bed that which I laid my head that night. I decided that couch surfing was not for me and nodded off into a lala land of maybe I should try a new approach. Yeah, maybe.
Back at a hostel in Santiago
Anyhow, up to this point, I haven't looked at my bank account. I didn't want to see the lack of monetary funds therein. Anytime I thought I was getting courageous enough to look, I would down a few glasses of wine and then would find myself dancing right out of adult mode and finding the nearest live music to slink away into. Ignorance is not bliss in a situation like this, because eventually, the bliss stops, and the ignorance gets you homeless and stranded in foreign lands. This, I could feel churning in my bones and the mortality of my situation looming in the oh too near distance-soon this trip and I were going to have to break up, and it was definitely because of me this time. I, needed grounding, the 'Mom found an empty beer bottle in my closet in 8th grade, grounding. Drats. I decided to lay off the wine this time and go for a run to expend some of the forthcoming anxieties that were bubbling up about what to do next. Anxieties I had to rid before I could comfortably sit in the foretelling decision that was to be made. I arrived back, finding the most comfortable post shower state of being to cuddle myself into, slinking my body into the comforts of pillows, oh yeah, and wine were just the support I needed as I set forth in seeking the answer to my, all too soon destiny. Had I mentioned anywhere that I never thought I would return back to America? Well I am now. Needless to say, this moment was heavy.
After the hiccup in Brazil, I was flat out of money and deep into the illusory debts of the plastic cards that I become all too familiar with flexing. When the reality set in that the last place I pictured myself returning to was exactly the place I was returning to, I made a phone call to Uruguay. "Hola Morghan!," came the enthusiastic response from the other end of the line, from my dear friend Martin. "Martin, amor, how are you? I'm wondering what you are doing next week. I have little funds but want to make a go in South America. Could I stay with you for a few days?!" dripped out of my mouth, like hungry dog to rabbit meat. Awaiting the response, convict facing life sentence, as the next on the fly blueprints of my travels were released into the Universe, gliding on the wings of eagles, vulnerable in the looming forbearance or unperturbed delivery. Sadly, he was to be taking off for a family holiday. The moment had arrived. I was going back to Wisconsin.
