Pulling it back together

Went back to the hotel, sulked in my monk-like cell with no bathroom, then waited for what seemed like ages in the entrance hall for the tour. There's no reception here and the staff just drift around and to be honest I don't really recognise them yet, so I couldn't ask what was happening. About half an hour or more late some guy turned up at the door, said 'are you Steve?' and we went off. I had horrible visions they'd been waiting for ages for me, but I found out later the whole tour was running late and they weren't.

To start with I was just so hacked off I couldn't enjoy it. I was thinking that I need to go to El Tatio geyser as well and the tours leave at 4am and so I can't do it tomorrow now because it's too late. And on top of that, although it's Immature or whatever, I was in just such an arsey mood.

As I was sullenly staring at the cordillera de sal (something like that) this woman asked me something in Spanish, probably did I want a picture taken. I replied in very very bad Spanish and she realised I was English (turned out she was Brazilian with a real gift for languages) and we spoke in English and I felt so pathetic for showing so little linguistic ability.

Then when we got off at the next place (Death Valley) this obviously native english speaking chap spoke to me. Turned out he was Welsh but had lived in Australia for about 26 years and was here with his Australian wife, although he'd done a tiny bit of this tour on his own back in '94.

We sort of hooked up as a little subgroup and talking with them really helped me snap out of feeling like such a pathetic loser. We came out to a restaurant together afterwards and they've just left, they are off to Bolivia tomorrow. They have recommended a tour and I may go and investigate tomorrow, it's a different route to La Paz and Lake Titicaca that might work nicely for me. It also helped that they speak no Spanish whatsoever, but the Welsh-Australian guy in particular is just so outgoing he speaks to people in English and gets away with it. I slightly assisted them as translator in recovering some overdue laundry they needed to pick up ready for tomorrow.

Really nice guys and as I say I think that meeting them has snapped me out of my mood (I told them as much) whereas I had expected to try to extricate myself via sullen intake of liquid depressants and a half decent night's sleep.

Plan for tomorrow is to get up not too late (they say the bars here shut at midnight, unlike the rest of Chile, I am here in the restaurant on my own having a last couple after they left), go investigate that Bolivia trip, arrange a 4am trip to El Tatio for the day after and maybe also see if I can book up for sandboarding.

As we walked through death valley there was a sandboarding party on the top of some dune. It looks doable actually. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure I can't sandboard. But it doesn't look so intimidatingly cool and mystical as I'd imagined. Unlike activities like skiing, snowboarding and surfing, it looks like something you do with minimal equipment and without having to be a cool sort of person. So it would be nice to do it as a kind of 'fuck you' to my feelings earlier today. No doubt I will break my neck or twist my ankle, but if I can ask at the hostel about the trip they do and they say no experience is necessary I may have a go.

Despite my improved mood, nothing on the trip was absolutely stunning. Sunset at Valle de la Luna was OK but not that spectacular.

Earlier on we went through some cave which was stretching my comfort zone just a bit. It was not 'squeeze your body through this narrow crevice in the dark' spelunking, but it was a bit of an 'all four limbs' trip through some fairly narrow areas and I am stupidly a little chuffed with myself for doing it without freaking out.

The Australian couple (he's about 50, she's about 40) are taking a year out to travel round South America, Europe and Africa. So once again I am trumped with my measly five month trip. :-)