Time Travelling

Phileas Fogg did it without even realising it. However, as I sit here in the hostel in a wet and miserable Santiago at 9.40pm, I am very, very well aware of the fact that I have just crossed the international dateline and in the process confused my poor old body clock beyond its mere mortal capabilities!

To summarise, we checked out of our hostel at 10am on Tuesday, went for a walk and a coffee about 11.30am and left for the airport about 1pm. Arriving at the airport and checking in, we hit the departure area about 2.30pm for a 4pm boarding. We then had a 10 hour flight with movies and I was lucky enough to have, somewhere in the vicinity of my seat, the esteemed presence of Captain Farts-a-lot for the entire journey – my eye mask proved an excellent nose mask! But, I digress, we arrived then, after 10 long, sleepless hours in Santiago shortly before 11am on Tuesday, just over 5 hours earlier than we left Auckland.

I made the fatal error of sleeping a little two long. My intended one hour nap morphed into a blissful 4 hours of comatose sleep and now I am paying the price. Schmo, however, has the gift. He may not sleep on planes, but by god, give him a bed and off he heads to the land of nod! I have that scratchy feeling in my eyes, I know they’re begging for sleep, but my little siesta means they’ll have to wait a little longer!

Eventually, I succumbed and fell fast asleep, waking to the smell of pancakes, the free breakfast provided by the hostel. Unfortunately, by the time I hauled myself into the shower and downstairs, there was no one around to give me mine, so I settled for toast.

A brief stroll around Santiago didn’t reveal a whole lot. To be fair, we didn’t venture all that far. We had a bus to organise for the next day and with jet lagged minds and bodies we had little in the way of enthusiasm to appreciate our first foray into South American culture.

Later that night, much, much later, I was cursing the solid sleep of the previous night. I lay awake till after 4am, silently begging the hostels water pump/heater to just turn off long enough for me to sleep, while my restless neighbour of the previous night snored softly! Not even the smell of the promised pancakes could rouse me the following morning and I eventually surfaced just about in time for the midday check out. As left Santiago, I felt we really hadn’t given it a chance. So, next stop, sleep or no sleep, I’m going to soak it all up!