Iquique, Friday

1226 Checked out OK though naturally drowsed in bed til last minute. Walked around, went into old railway station (part of building now seems to be a registry office), vaguely tried to find museo regional but couldn't.

At Restaurant 680 for pichanga chica (papas fritas, trozos de carne y pollo, chorizo, cebolla, huevo). I am assuming this is a mixed grill kind of deal. Nearly went back to place had that excellent lomo a lo pobre yday but decided not to. Also popped into Las Tejas (corner Barros Arana and Thompson) but super expensive (6 or 7k for lomo a lo pobre if memory serves) so decided to give it a miss. Quality might be excellent but you never know.

Time hanging a bit heavy to be honest.

Oh, I did manage to buy two CR2032 batteries for my electronic dictionary, though I don't know when I might manage to fit them. It's in my bag and unless I can improvise with eg a pair of tweezers, I don't have a small screwdriver to open the battery compartment with. I do think it might be a bit faulty as it gobbled up the last lot of batteries in a month or so with hardly any use, and it also has a habit of resetting itself when not in use (which makes all the personal word list stuff useless). We will see. It isn't that old and wasn't cheap but I just might look into buying a newer one. (Or, yes, I could get an app for my phone. Possibly worth considering, since I have not usually been so tight for battery power that the tiny amount of use that would involve would be significant. I assume the amount of storage involved is relatively negligible.)

1316 Very good (basically what I expected, except meat in bite-sized pieces) and enormous portion; left quite a lot of fries. I hope they didn't give me the large by mistake.

Had a coke zero with the meal, might have one beer in a bit, then go for a wander.

1456 Just got a second beer (taking it easy or what?). Battery at 59% as am reading on phone. Bit screwed probably, because I expect to be without any charging facilities in the dormitory in La Serena, leading to me either having to get them to charge it at reception and/or sneak charges from the socket in the bathroom, both of which I had to do last time. I suppose I could also get a bit of a charge from an internet cafe PC, but that's so slow it would not be worth doing, unless I happened to find myself using one anyway.

And of course I have the bus as well before I get to La Serena anyway.

1532 Pink Floyd's "High Hopes" playing. Bus goes in just under 2h.

1539 "Another Brick In The Wall" now

1602 Just paid. 6k plus 500 tip. Food was almost certainly the small (!) At 3k then. Bit under half this beer left, will try not to neck it and then walk back to hostel. Getting those pre-bus (as in 'pre appointment/deadline') jitters.

1704 At termin.al. Couldn't get a fucking taxi in the street. Most full and more annoyingly the empty ones seemed to blatantly ignore me. Started walking in vague direction of terminal (bag is a bit heavy; might be better worn on back but didn't really want to faff or work up more of a sweat than I could help) and eventually got one. CLP1500 and partly out of habit, partly out of gratitude and partly just to get paid and get out paid 2k. I fucking hate this tipping business, I really do. If I'd got change and handed him 150, would that be patronising? Yet I am undoubtedly dribbling away modestly large sums over time with these minimum 500 tips.

Battery at 41% BTW. Still, do have Yes Man now.

Oh, asked for screwdriver at reception. And of course the fucking dictionary is now working with the old batteries. It is clearly suffering from some sort of dodgy connection. I did try it several times the day it went dead and thwhacked it around a bit so it's not clearly why it has suddenly started working. I think subject to cost an app for the phone has to be the way forward. Maybe combined with bringing the existing electronic one as a backup (though that's extra weight and bulk, if not much, and it's hardly super-reliable) or if I could fine such a thing an ultra compact paper dictionary.

Just noticed there is actually an ad for La Casona 1920 hostel here at the terminal.

1729 On bus. Lower deck is cama so I don't know why that wasn't an option. Don't think it was full cos surely they'd have said so. Maybe they only sell that to Santiago (final destination of bus). Not sure.

Seat is at front of top deck. Sprog with mother sat in pair of seats to left. Not too fucking noisy yet.

No fucking concept of a queue here, either to put luggage in hold or to get on. Enormously fat woman had about 5 giant bags to load on. No one sat next to me yet, but am sure there will be. Damn well hope it's not her, though she seemed to be travelling with a friend so I would assume they will have seats together.

At least being at the front (a deliberate choice) I get a bit of a view and there's no seat to recline in front of me.

Was slightly more anxious than usual to get on as it was 1725 and I wanted to get my ticket checked (guy was doing it before letting people on) before 1730 so if I had the wrong bus I had a vague chance of retrieving my bag and going to the right bus before it left. Not that I've ever got the wrong bus yet, touch wood etc. Also not as if you'd really expect it to leave on time; earlier at 1715ish there was a bus to Valparaiso with 1630 on front still here.

Hmm, bloke just sat next to woman with sprog, so I guess sprog is going to sit on one of their laps. Oh, and we seem to have one sat behind me (except in the window seat) as it keeps tapping on the window. Thank fuck I recharged my MP3 player the other day.

1826 Sleepy as hell. Going to send this now anyway.