Santiago, Friday

Sat 0029 Not a super productive day but it's OK, enjoying apartment while I can.

I just booked a room on airbnb for 3 nights in Concepcion (a hair under £11/night) - apartments seem super pricey and/or are booked up. Not sure if I will like Concepcion so just going for the 3 nights and I can always extend (switching to different accom, probably) if I do.

Got up lateish and forced myself out of flat maybe 3ish. Got Metro over to U de Santiago and went into the bus terminals there to buy ticket. Tried 2-3  and all shook their heads in a "are you joking?" kind of way when I asked for a bus to Concepcion, including one which showed it explicitly as a destination on their kiosk. In the end I got a Turbus ticket for CLP15900 semi-cama; timetable not as flexible as I'd hoped (a web site lead me to believe some companies did hourly buses) so I have to leave 1245 which is fine at this end but means I will get in about 1900-2000 which is maybe getting towards dark (arrival time was shown on screen when booked but isn't on ticket so can't remember precisely). Had forgotten about the prospect of paying by card instead of cash so hadn't taken Clarity with me but dredged Starling out of hidden belt and used that.

Walked back from bus terminal to flat (maybe an hour?) popping into supermarket for fizzy drink and chocolate on way. Cooked at home and had chocolate a bit later, been watching crap on Youtube etc (using big TV in bedroom as before) but it's OK.

May be meeting Cony tomorrow but not clear yet. I got in touch with host for this flat and all I need to do is leave keys on table when I check out at 11am; a cleaner will come in afterwards.

Had superlatively unhelpful response to my complaint to Edelwiss; still deciding how/if to take this further - obviously one option is simply to acknowledge they successfully tricked me into booking this time, pay their seat reservation fee and do my best not to fly with them in future, but I just may kick up a stink if there's any reasonable chance to do that.

Could in theory have gone out tonight but I had a few beers yesterday and I may be out tomorrow (even if meeting C falls through, given 11am checkout I could go out for a few beers tomorrow night solo if I want) and as I said earlier in a way it's nice to enjoy the apartment while I have it. Not saying won't get one in Concepcion if I decide to stay and any cheap options do emerge, but can't be indulging in this sort of thing constantly - it's just not a good use of my travel budget.

0211 FFS, not really tired but should go to bed.