I just had what was probably my craziest flight. 12 hours over the open ocean, arriving before the time I departed. I just landed in Santiago from a flight leaving Sydney. This flight crosses the Pacific entirely. In between, there are no islands, and it’s crossing the “International Date Line”. While my flight took off at 11 am in Australia, I landed the same day at 9 am in Chile. Then, adding 12 hours of flight time in between, it feels like living in a matrix. That’s all because of the timezone/date line change. When crossing, we’re suddenly in the same time, but another day. In the past months, I gradually lost hours while travelling East. Now, all in one, I gained them all back and more. Making travel into the future possible.
Santiago, Chile
I arrived in Santiago, took a taxi to my Airbnb, and settled in. It was a very local and cute place. I fell in love directly. Very liveable and a real Airbnb. Somebody usually lives there and makes it comfortable. Those are the places I love and feel at home immediately. A reason why I use Airbnb very regularly and very happy with the service. After I unpacked my things, I had to take an afternoon nap since I usually can’t sleep well on an aeroplane, and there’s still a 14-hour time difference to adjust to. I’m usually very fine with time changes and don’t really have jetlag. Travelling west is usually easier. Also, this time, this afternoon nap was enough for me, and I was ready to meet a friend I know in Santiago for dinner and a drink at a rooftop bar.
My time in Santiago was short, just as before in Australia. I spent two weeks in Chile’s capital, working and exploring the city. Chile would have a lot to offer, but this involves flying North to the salt lakes and deserts or South to the mountains and steps (Patagonia). I had no time for that and stayed focused at work instead. In the evenings, I sometimes went out with some people I had just learnt to know or some I already knew from previous South American trips. As always, when I come to a new country, I want to try out their food. They had “Churrasco Italiano” or “Completo Italiano”, which I tried both. Then, my unique thing I like to find is a special soft drink. I was also successful in that. My friend works at Coca-Cola and is very familiar with all the soft drink brands. So she gave me “Bilz”, “Pap” and “Kem” to try. Drinks I’ve never seen anywhere else.
Also in Santiago, there was a wework and I chose the location of my Airbnb in close distance to the building so I can easily commute there. I chose to ride an electric scooter and figured out that in this modern part of the city, it’s very convenient to do so. The government prepare special lanes for bicycles and electric scooters, which are used by many locals as well. So there’s almost more of a “traffic jam” in the bicycle lane than with cars. The co-working space was in a great location, in a high-rise building with an amazing view. wework usually is located in a top location with a great view. Also, here it didn’t disappoint.
My Airbnb was also very close to a new commercial centre, which I like a lot. They built a garden on top of the building, and inside there were many food places and some art galleries. Modern, hipster, and local combined – very well done. So I went there a couple of times to hang out and grab food.