Trying to make myself feel better

I should be more sanguine. I am a touch more relaxed now, in part thanks to the sweet brown liquor and in part due to 'taking a break'. It was the same earlier when I left off after struggling to find hostels in La Serena and went out for dinner. It's always good to step back from problems I guess.

If that Canadian hiker chap can comfortably turn up here in Punta Arenas at 8pm on Sunday night without worrying about getting somewhere to stay, I should be able to adopt a relaxed attitude to booking a bus out of Santiago four or five hours before it leaves. Worst comes to worst, I pop over to an internet cafe, book a cheap hotel (two have vacancies on expedia.co.uk today, so I suspect they will tomorrow as well - oddly, that same reasoning fails to convince me with regard to seats on the bus though) and get an earlyish bus the next day in time to take up my reservation at the hotel on Wednesday night. It would undoubtedly be better and cheaper to get an overnight bus, but it's not the end of the world. There's no way I can fail to find a hotel of some sort in Santiago, even if those cheap expedia ones are full all of a sudden, and at least I am slightly familiar with the city (I even have a Bip! card, the local equivalent of the Oyster card in London, thanks to Estefano), speak t
he language a bit and am not scared shitless of the place as I would be if this was in Rio or Sao Paulo. It'll be fine. What I tell myself three times is true. :-)