for my friends in santiago
On my first day in Santiago, I met Adam at breakfast and followed him around all day. We ate comically large Chilean sandwiches and went on a city walking tour and hiked up Cerro San Cristobal and found the best viewpoints by going off road onto dusty trails (worth almost getting run over by a mountain bike and falling on my ass once).
When I think of that day, I’ll remember the new sights, but also all the long, meandering talks with Adam. It’s a true cliche that it’s the people that make the experience. Santiago will be remembered as our hostel owner Ivan taking me out for my first Piscola, Gideon and Adam sharing their dinners with me because I didn’t make it to the supermarket before close, Sofie clubbing with me all night (reunited after meeting backpacking in Australia in 2018), and Yvonne giving me a local’s tour and her candid truth on the protests making parts of her home city unrecognizable.
In our busy day to day lives, how many dinners, drinks and coffees does it take to really get to know someone new? How many “It’s been so long” or “So sorry work is crazy, can we reschedule?” or “Let’s definitely get together soon!” I think there’s a guard we put up in our daily grind, confined to the binds of who we think we should be and what we think we should say. Fast, random friendships form so easily in the transience of travel, with no pressure to impress but the time pressure of an impending goodbye. It’s the perfect cocktail for true vulnerability between two strangers, for connection to spark no matter how short the time together might be.
