Day 1. Many, many flights.

My journey begins like most of my journeys – with a bout of pre-trip blues, when all I want to do is stay in my room forever and not have to deal with packing, mental preparation, travel to the airport, check-in, interminable flights…Then comes a frenzy of packing and I discover that my beloved purple Kelty rucksack - my companion ever since my cousin gave it to me for my 18th birthday and which had served as my bed on more than one occasion – is showing signs of wear. I sew up the worst of the tears and hope it survives this trip; I may have to retire it at the end. It’s already completely full because I’ve had to pack both for the south of Chile and the Peruvian Amazon basin; since there is absolutely no room into which to cram the multiple brochures I’ll be picking up from tourist offices all over, this should encourage/force me to work as I go along.

As usual, I fail to tick all the items on my “to do” list and I know that when I come back home I’ll have to deal with multiple problems – having to move house (again), getting my Russian passport – but there’s nothing I can do about them, so I put it out of my mind. On top of that – Sod’s Law – my gums have chosen this very day to start acting up, with no time to visit my dentist and Annelyn, my contact at the Dutch “Da Vinci Vertalingen” translation company has just emailed me with a job that I’ve foolishly accepted.

First stop: Madrid airport – one of my least favourite, due to it’s crapulous food and lack of facilities. I’m getting hot flushes and spend my time pacing the length of the terminal to generate some semblance of a breeze and drinking gallons of water from the water fountain.

In Santiago, circumstances conspire against me. Because I’m distracted, when I run the gauntlet of taxi drivers and waiting relatives upon emerging through Customs, I end up following someone who leads me to the check-in desk for the Easter Island flight. Of course, he’s not an official airport worker; he wants to be paid for something that I could’ve easily done myself. Annoying. Then I discover that the cash machine won’t give me any money and that my Chilean SIM card has expired, so I can’t call my bank. Since I’ve got eight hours to kill before my Easter Island flight, I take a bus to the city centre in search of a call centre, where I proceed to give Nationwide a piece of my mind for blocking my card, as I explicitly warned them before leaving home that I was going to be travelling.

In Barrio Brazil, I notice the first signs of the recent earthquake: several genteel old buildings are sporting large cracks in their facades. Am rather subdued in spite of the bright sunshine and the heat; it’s from these very streets that I last called a terminally ill friend during my previous trip to Chile; I used to call him every few days while on the road. I thought to myself then that the next time I set foot in South America, he would be dead. Now he is.

I stop by Luz Azul, my favourite youth hostel of all time due to its plush bunk beds with orthopaedic mattresses to say hello to the surfer guy owner (we have mutual friends) and to cheekily use their internet, and then hit my favourite steak house, Vacas Gordas (Fat Cows). When my perfectly cooked pancetta-wrapped beef medallions ‘a punto’ (pink inside) arrive, the morning’s annoyances are quickly forgotten. My South American diet is nothing like my diet at home. I begin to consume prodigious quantities of meat that hasn’t been processed beyond recognition. Mind you, Chile, Argentina and Brazil certainly know what to do with their meat…

My flight to Easter Island is consumed by a really dull Russian-English translation of a contract, but it’s an easily-earned 200 Euros. You can spot the islanders among the other passengers: they are not gringos and their exotic Polynesian appearance sets them apart from the rather homogenous Chilean mainland population

The landing is anti-climatic: whereas last time I came with two friends and we were greeted by the guest house owner who garlanded us with flowers, this time she hasn’t turned up, it’d dark, windy and raining, and I end up hitching a lift to Ana Rapu’s place with another B&B owner who offers me a ride.

My living quarters consist of a large musty room up a rickety ladder from the landlady’s son’s room. I don’t mind; Joaquin is a typical example of Easter Island eye candy – compact, trim, muscled, with copper skin and luscious dark hair down to his waist.

The last few sleepless nights get the better of me and I pass out for ten hours.