18th December 2024

The alarm was a rude awakening. Reluctantly we pulled ourselves out from the comfort of bed and got ready to face the day before enjoying a breakfast that wasn’t porridge. Today we were flying to Santiago.

On boarding, we walked out onto the runway and was shocked to find that the wind was slapping the side of the plane so hard it was causing it to swing side to side. We got onboard and sure enough felt like we were on a boat. Take off was a rough ride. Neither of us had experienced turbulence like it, the plane battled the winds head on bouncing up and down, and side to side.

Once landed, we headed straight for the shopping mall in Santiago to find me some replacement runners. My old ones, pictured above, had gaping holes at the toes and outer side of the shoes (not obvious in the photo!). We arrived at the mall, heavy packs donned and instantly felt like shrinking back into ourselves. At 6pm the mall was heaving with Christmas shoppers all busy and keen to get past us.

We stopped at many sports shops and eyed the trail runners. But whenever I asked to try a US10 there was a look of confusion from sales assistants and an explanation that there were none available in this size. Eventually a sales assistant who spoke reasonably good English said that women’s sizes in Chile only go up to a US9. Dan, who always jokes that I have paddles for feet, found this hilarious.

At that moment we exited the store and spotted a Hoka store. Again, the same issue, women’s shoes too small for my paddles! I asked to try a men’s size and ended up walking out with a new pair of men’s SpeedGoat 6s. My beaten down trail runners dumped in the store for disposal, wrecked and ruined having seen me through at least 400 miles. 

Both of us were very hungry now considering we had eaten our lunch at 10am in the airport. We eyed the fast food options thinking they would be quickest and settled on Wendy’s. We were wrong, 45 minutes later we sat down to eat. We both commented on how much we missed the trail and how overwhelming we found the crowded mall after 8 days of being away from civilisation.

Finally we reached the hostel at 10pm and collapsed into bed, glad for the day to be over.