HAUNTED BY SANTIAGO.

Guess what? I'm back in Santiago again. My cards have finally arrived after ages. I started to feel that I have built a love-hate relationship with Santiago which is very unfair towards the city. I loved it so much the first days I arrived and now I have mixed feelings about this place just because the time I spent here was 1/3 of the time I planned for my travels. Anyways, back from Rio and back to the flexibility I was yearning for since weeks, that is using the credit card again.

I feel excited but empty and somehow indifferent. A bit more than a month to go and then I'm supposed to be back. But only now I feel like I'm in this, I'm into traveling and I can't imagine to go back. I really can't. Obviously I miss home, my family and the faces of my beloved friends. But thinking about going home gives me anxiety just like the anxiety I felt right before I was about to leave Germany for 3 months; just the other way around.

I will be spending Christmas and New Years with the one and only Anne van de Ven, who is also traveling at the moment. I will be meeting her in Nicaragua, spending festive days at the beach which is something completely new for me and I feel really really excited about our reunion.

Afterwards, I wanted to go to Vietnam for 3 weeks which are the last weeks of my travels. But right now one way flights are 1500€ which is insane. So I'm kind of in suspense for now.


Anyways, I shall show you my last day and last impressions of Rio I guess. Save the best for last: After days of planning on going, I finally made it to the top of the Sugar Loaf mountain on my last day in Rio. It was so worth it, being on top of the hill with an incredible 360° view of Rio, the sunset and the Christ statue. Yep.

IT'S BEEN A ROUGH WEEK

Wallet and belongings stolen.

Fun, successful event but really exhausting because we were literally smoked salmons after the BBQ.

Facebook stalker. I blocked someone for the first time after waking up every morning with countless weird messages and several notifications of his likes on my pictures (after he has been kicked out of the hostel for harassing another girl). 

Monster tonsillitis I'm still recovering from. Never had it worse than this time.

Credit cards, please arrive fast because I can't wait to get the fuck out of here.

Not whiny, still very positive, but it's about time I get to see something else. 

SHIT HAPPENS

Ok, I am the worst and most unprepared traveller ever existed. Usually I book my trip plus hostel, arrive somewhere, connect to the WIFI and literally google: "What to do in ..." and "What to eat in ..." You can fill in the "... " - gap the cities I have arrived in.

Because I had a 1 day delay with the Buenos Aires trip, I had more time to actually inform myself more about the place I will go to. And obviously there were a lot of tips, warnings and security recommendations in general. So because I was better informed, I was more scared about which bad things could happen to me whilst in Buenos Aires. I found myself hiding money in my shoe, carrying around pepperspray and holding on to my iPhone while walking around the streets of Buenos Aires.
After a few days I thought that it was unnecessary and I should calm down a bit because for no second did I feel less safe than in comparison to the other cities I have been to.

Arriving in Santiago after Buenos Aires, having read the same scary stories about the city like before, I was more relaxed about everything.
But then yesterday someone broke into our dorm and stole basically everything they could grab in a quick manner and unfortunately also my wallet with $70000 CLP, that's 100€ of cash, my german ID and 2 bank cards. They also randomly took my first aid bag with medicine and a bag of all cosmetics I brought with me which is worth approx. 1000€ - I'm not even exaggerating. (I know I'm stupid for bringing them but I thought those are the only fancy things I took with me, everything else was very backpack-traveler-like, I swear!)

This time, I was quite calm. Neither did I cry and freak out nor was I thinking about going home. I called the 2 banks and cancelled my cards, tried calling the police but they didn't pick up (!) which is a joke. So we just went out on the street, stopped 2 of the traffic policemen and they radioed their other police friends and 3 (!) big police vans came with their crazy lights on. I was questioned by a very much relaxed policemen and it took him literally 30 minutes to fill out one page of information which i could have done in 5 minutes. Anyways, that was all and there was no hope that I will ever see anything of the stolen things ever again. The worst thing was we were standing on the street and every person who passed by looked at me with the you-dumb-tourist-got-robbed-look.


I have been talking about security when traveling to countless people before and while being on the road. And I have always been saying: "Well, bad things could happen everywhere, not just in South America. If you are careful and walk around with open eyes, it should be alright. If someone holds a knife against your throat, there is nothing you can do anyways other than giving him everything you have."
Too bad, this had to be one of my bad experiences but it is ok. Even though I didn't sleep very well last night but this morning when I woke up I was even more determined I should be staying here, wait until my new cards arrive and just make the best out of the situation - that is taking things lightly and with humor. It's the only way to take it anyways.

SANTIAGO - FOOD AND ME

Everyone who knows me knows that I love food and everything which comes with it: cooking, eating and sharing. In the last 2 months I have re-discovered how much I do enjoy cooking, not only for myself, but for others as well and making cooking a small 'event', a get-together and just an enjoyable evening.

I realized I have been cooking a lot lately, preferably in my own kitchen or in a very well equipped one (which does not mean that my small kitchen is well equipped, I'm just used to it), before I was traveling. And now, after 4 weeks of being on the road, I started to cook in hostels I stay as well. And it's so much fun, buying fresh ingredients from a local market, making your own food instead of going out to eat every day, and not to forget: it's much cheaper. There are always other people around in the hostel, and somehow you end up cooking different dishes from different countries and just share everything while having a glass of wine and talking about the next destinations, your travel plans in general and maybe ambitions in life. It's great and I do see myself continue doing this for the next while.

Sergej's Borscht, rice and Ngoc's rips.

When visiting Mercado Central (the biggest fish market around here), you need to stop at Tío Willy to enjoy the best sea food in town.

What is it with me and cotton candy? I just like buying them, not really eating them though. As a kid I was not able to buy them because I didn't have money while the other kids from my school did, so since I moved to Germany, every time I see people selling them, I just have to buy one. It's quite funny now thinking about this being an act of compensation for the past. That is one thing I realized yesterday. Hmm.

SANTIAGO - CERRO SAN CRISTÓBAL AND FOOD // OR // "IT WAS A VERY GOOD DAY!"

I met some really nice people from this hostel and the plan was to walk up the hill San Cristóbal, enjoying some fruits, wine and the sunset.

We ended up taking the funicular up because we were too impatient and it started getting late and we had plans to cook dinner all together. 

The view from the hill down to the city was one of a kind, and then I realized that this city actually is massive (because you wouldn't realize it by just walking the streets - DUH!)

The last funicular drove down at 7:45PM and when we wanted to buy tickets at 7:30PM, the counter was already closed and they wouldn't let us buy tickets and use the funicular again. So we walked down, enjoying the landscape, the sky changing colors at sunset and just the scenery in general.

But were naive enough to think there is only one way to get down to the point we started. We got lost, it was dark and the lighting on the streets was basically non-existent. It was kind of scary and I was actually very happy and relieved I wasn't alone. The walking road down takes 1,5h and at some point we didn't know where we were. After calling a few friends and trying to figure out what to do, finally, we decided to just walk the main street downhill and found a cab which took us back to the hostel. 

It was dinner time and my Russian friends made borscht and I made Vietnamese rips according to my own recipe. We had dinner on the terrace at midnight and we kept saying "It was a very good day!"

This statue can be seen everywhere in Santiago.

A VietnameseGerman, a CzechGerman and a GermanRussian wearing scarves.

Cheeky smile because I was carrying a bottle of red wine and tried to hide it. It is forbidden to drink in public in Chile.

The highest building in South America.

SANTIAGO DE CHILE - FIRST IMPRESSIONS

There is something familiar and intimate about Bella Vista and from the first moment I'm walking the streets of this neighborhood, I knew I like it here. Maybe it's the colorful houses which remind me of Mexico, especially Guadalajara, where I was back in February this year. Maybe it's the way of living, how people are, the infrastructure, even what they are selling, which somehow reminds me a little bit of Vietnam. It's crazy but I feel comfortable here after just a few hours of walking around and it feels like I have been here before. 

Obviously, the view on a place depends on where you have recently been before and just coming from Palermo, a very nice and modern neighborhood of Buenos Aires, it seems that there is something very rural and raw about Bella Vista which I really appreciate. 

I really do like it here. 

Bella Vista is a very lively neighborhood with one restaurant and bar after the other. There is always something going on here.

La Vega, a massive market which offers literally everything you want in terms of food. Super crowded, loud people; one of the top 10 markets in the world. Thats what google told me at least.

Can't get over the fact that there are mountains in and surrounding this city. It's just incredible!

NEW YORK - TORONTO - SANTIAGO AND BUENOS AIRES AT LAST.

Had i known the new flight meant that I would have a 12h lay over in Toronto (why would I first fly further away from my destination and then fly back?), 2h lay over in Santiago (the city I will visit in 6 days) and it would take me 30h to get to Buenos Aires, I might have booked my flight back to Germany. Nah, just kidding. I was so relieved I made it to Buenos Aires.

I arrived at Maria's place which is absolutely stunning and was warmly welcomed by her. I guess to have friend's friends taking care of you while you are on the road is a privilege and I absolutely don't take it for granted.

I have had a long journey so I knew nothing big is happening on this rainy Sunday anymore. We decided to cook dinner and have a few of Maria's friends coming over. Maria made spectacular salmon sashimi and a little delicious side dish, its name and recipe I still have yet to google. I made Vietnamese rips and water spinach with garlic, 2 of my favorite dishes. We had ice cream as dessert, one of the best ice creams I have had so far. It was a nice and easy going evening and once again, I was so glad I made it to Buenos Aires.