As I was slouching on the side of the street in La Paz blowing my nose, Jordi asked me which way up or down the street I wanted to go exploring. I said the only way I wanted to go was back in the hotel where our backpacks were being stored to ask for a room. He agreed $35 was a good price to pay for at least a couple hours sleep, and deemed it my Valentines Day present, which was fine with me.
We were given a room, and instead of traipsing around La Paz until it was time to go to the airport, I quickly fell asleep, waking up at 1 a.m. for the taxi ride to the airport.
I woke up feeling horrible, and once we got to the airport it was all I could do to get to our departure gate before I collapsed on the benches. Jordi checked our bags and got us through security while I either layed on the tile floor or on benches somewhat following his progress.
We finally got on the plane where thankfully I got a row to myself and fell asleep.
We landed in Iquique, and once again I flopped and crawled on the tile floor, following Jordi through customs and security onto our next flight to Santiago.
(We were super lucky to have a layover in Iquique because a direct landing in Santiago would have cost us $140 each, according to our research!)
Anyways, we landed in Santiago, by which time I was at least feeling well enough to stand up and walk without pain. We grabbed our stuff and booked it out of the airport before anyone could charge us $140, and were feeling very excited we had escaped the fee.
Our plan was to then go to a bus stop and get a 7 hour bus to Mendoza, Argentina. We didn't have any books on Chile or Chilean money, and were only planning on spending a couple hours to maybe a night there.
We got into a taxi and asked the driver to take us to the bus station. Jordi remembered he didn't have any money, so we stopped at a gas station ATM. Once at the station, the driver asked for 65,000 Chilean. We were retarded and didn't know the exchange rate, and gave him what he asked. Once at the bus station, all tickets were sold out for the day, and Jordi realized the 65,000 Chilean translated to 135 dollars.
I thought we brought it upon ourselves by not knowing the rates, or checking the ticker, but Jordi was so mad he could no longer concentrate on busses, and ushered us back into a taxi to the airport to go look for this sneak.
I sighed and resigned myself to our vengeance task.
We paid the driver $10 and found our terminal, although we didn't see our bald, fat taxi friend. We reported to the airport police, who were very sympathetic and thought he would probably be long gone by now, but gave us a pamphlet of tourist tips, one of which was to only take "official" taxi's, and not just any taxi.
We collapsed at a cafe as we wondered what to do next. I got up and was wandering around when I thought I saw him, holding up a taxi sign. I stopped and stared, and one of the plainsclothes police that had helped us before asked if I saw him. I said it looked like him, but I wasn't sure....just then, like a flash, Jordi ran past us both, grabbed the taxi driver by the shirt and started demanding our money in Spanish. I ran to help him - the driver was trying to get away! But he was old and fat, and we didn't let him get anywhere. He was telling us to calm down, and that he'd take us to his car and pay us back. I yelled to the police, AYUDANOS! and the police came and intervened. I had to go back and watch over our luggage, but they took Jordi and the driver back to the car where he paid Jordi back everything. The police filed a report for us, and told us we were very lucky he wasn't a professional, and to watch out when we get to Argentina because things are worse there.
We were so happy and "justified", and I was very proud of Jord for coming back to try and get this guy, and I'm glad we did before he scammed more people!
Anyways, we decided to just get a hotel for the night and worry about bus tickets later. We took a bus to the center of town, put on our packs and trecked around in the heat looking for a hotel. (which I didn't mind because I was so happy about being able to breathe normal air, finally) We finally found one within our price range, and as soon as I took off my backpack, I flopped on the bed and didn't move for hours.
Jordi eventually woke me up to go get some dinner. We walked for a bit and went to an Italian restaurant, where we were definitely the only tourists. All kinds of people came in carrying flowers or teddy bears, and we realized it was Valentines Day.
"Still??" I asked. I couldn't believe it was still the same day.
I could barely eat, as I still felt pretty sick, and we went back to the hotel and quickly fell asleep.
Until Jordi woke up violently and viciously sick in all sorts of ways. Apparently something he ate didn't agree with him, and he was up for hours in the bathroom. At 4 a.m. we were out of water, and I had to force myself out of bed to go look for some. Thankfully, the hotel had some bottled bubbly water, which lasted us a couple more hours, but wasn't ideal.
I forced myself out of bed a bit later to go out on the town looking for supplies. I walked for at least an hour, but came back victorious with cold water "sin gas" and gatorade!
What a Valentines Day saga! Jordi spent the rest of the day not quite as sick, and I didn't feel well either. We read Alice in Wonderland to eachother, watched a lot of TV and drank gatorade. We had to trek to the bus station to buy tickets, and in the eveing I found some Miso Soup take-out, but that was our day. My mother wisely instructed us to lay low until we were feeling well enough to travel, so we stayed in Santiago another two nights.
We were given a room, and instead of traipsing around La Paz until it was time to go to the airport, I quickly fell asleep, waking up at 1 a.m. for the taxi ride to the airport.
I woke up feeling horrible, and once we got to the airport it was all I could do to get to our departure gate before I collapsed on the benches. Jordi checked our bags and got us through security while I either layed on the tile floor or on benches somewhat following his progress.
We finally got on the plane where thankfully I got a row to myself and fell asleep.
We landed in Iquique, and once again I flopped and crawled on the tile floor, following Jordi through customs and security onto our next flight to Santiago.
(We were super lucky to have a layover in Iquique because a direct landing in Santiago would have cost us $140 each, according to our research!)
Anyways, we landed in Santiago, by which time I was at least feeling well enough to stand up and walk without pain. We grabbed our stuff and booked it out of the airport before anyone could charge us $140, and were feeling very excited we had escaped the fee.
Our plan was to then go to a bus stop and get a 7 hour bus to Mendoza, Argentina. We didn't have any books on Chile or Chilean money, and were only planning on spending a couple hours to maybe a night there.
We got into a taxi and asked the driver to take us to the bus station. Jordi remembered he didn't have any money, so we stopped at a gas station ATM. Once at the station, the driver asked for 65,000 Chilean. We were retarded and didn't know the exchange rate, and gave him what he asked. Once at the bus station, all tickets were sold out for the day, and Jordi realized the 65,000 Chilean translated to 135 dollars.
I thought we brought it upon ourselves by not knowing the rates, or checking the ticker, but Jordi was so mad he could no longer concentrate on busses, and ushered us back into a taxi to the airport to go look for this sneak.
I sighed and resigned myself to our vengeance task.
We paid the driver $10 and found our terminal, although we didn't see our bald, fat taxi friend. We reported to the airport police, who were very sympathetic and thought he would probably be long gone by now, but gave us a pamphlet of tourist tips, one of which was to only take "official" taxi's, and not just any taxi.
We collapsed at a cafe as we wondered what to do next. I got up and was wandering around when I thought I saw him, holding up a taxi sign. I stopped and stared, and one of the plainsclothes police that had helped us before asked if I saw him. I said it looked like him, but I wasn't sure....just then, like a flash, Jordi ran past us both, grabbed the taxi driver by the shirt and started demanding our money in Spanish. I ran to help him - the driver was trying to get away! But he was old and fat, and we didn't let him get anywhere. He was telling us to calm down, and that he'd take us to his car and pay us back. I yelled to the police, AYUDANOS! and the police came and intervened. I had to go back and watch over our luggage, but they took Jordi and the driver back to the car where he paid Jordi back everything. The police filed a report for us, and told us we were very lucky he wasn't a professional, and to watch out when we get to Argentina because things are worse there.
We were so happy and "justified", and I was very proud of Jord for coming back to try and get this guy, and I'm glad we did before he scammed more people!
Anyways, we decided to just get a hotel for the night and worry about bus tickets later. We took a bus to the center of town, put on our packs and trecked around in the heat looking for a hotel. (which I didn't mind because I was so happy about being able to breathe normal air, finally) We finally found one within our price range, and as soon as I took off my backpack, I flopped on the bed and didn't move for hours.
Jordi eventually woke me up to go get some dinner. We walked for a bit and went to an Italian restaurant, where we were definitely the only tourists. All kinds of people came in carrying flowers or teddy bears, and we realized it was Valentines Day.
"Still??" I asked. I couldn't believe it was still the same day.
I could barely eat, as I still felt pretty sick, and we went back to the hotel and quickly fell asleep.
Until Jordi woke up violently and viciously sick in all sorts of ways. Apparently something he ate didn't agree with him, and he was up for hours in the bathroom. At 4 a.m. we were out of water, and I had to force myself out of bed to go look for some. Thankfully, the hotel had some bottled bubbly water, which lasted us a couple more hours, but wasn't ideal.
I forced myself out of bed a bit later to go out on the town looking for supplies. I walked for at least an hour, but came back victorious with cold water "sin gas" and gatorade!
What a Valentines Day saga! Jordi spent the rest of the day not quite as sick, and I didn't feel well either. We read Alice in Wonderland to eachother, watched a lot of TV and drank gatorade. We had to trek to the bus station to buy tickets, and in the eveing I found some Miso Soup take-out, but that was our day. My mother wisely instructed us to lay low until we were feeling well enough to travel, so we stayed in Santiago another two nights.
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