Hostels are cool!


The picture of today is of me at Corro Santa Lucia. In the background is part of the city of Santiago and the start of the Andi mountain range. The smog is so bad that I wasn't able to get a good shot of them, but believe me, they are huge!

Someone wrote me in an email asking how I was liking the Hostel and if it was strange not knowing anyone here, this is part of a the reply that I gave.
As far as not knowing anyone, it doesn't bother me at all, I make friends where I want to, and there always seems to be an interesting group to talk to here at the hostel. If I wanted to, I could get a couple of travel partners, I just enjoy exploring the city on my own right now. Last night I spend an hour or so talking to two Australian nurses from Tasmania who had been traveling for 7 months straight and were heading out to Peru in a day. It was interesting hearing their stories. Yesterday I had a great conversation with a guy from Brazil who had gone to Harvard business school and "missed the US greatly." Yesterday evening I ended up having a conversation for about 2 hours with a guy from Vegas and his soon-to-be-father-in-law who was originally from Santiago, but spoke four languages and worked as an interpreter for the Chicago International Airport for the past 30 years. And, this morning, my roommate Charlie left for Brazil.
Charlie was an interesting character. He was from Iowa and had been traveling sense October. He had 4 foster children that he sponsored through PLAN and was going throughout Central and South America visiting them. At 68 years old he had gone through Guadalajara, a small village in the Andes and still had foster children to see in Brazil and somewhere in Mexico. He seemed a little bit lonely, as I'm sure that anyone would who had been traveling that long. Also, he wasn't the "type" that you would expect to traveling, not the "adventuresome" look. On top of all this traveling, he said he was scouting out a place for a winter home in South America and was touring the neighborhoods in order to find a place to stay. Where every you are Charlie, I wish you the best of luck and hope that you have a safe trip.
For those of you who have not had the opportunity to stay at a hostel, I really encourage you to do it. It's kind of like a miniature Casablanca where random groups of travelers meet as they stop off to rest and regroup. But that is a topic for another day.

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