It is currently 1:53 am and for the past 4 hours I have been scouring the internet trying to make myself believe that I can be a backpacker. It has been a horribly difficult and uphill battle.
I never imagined myself backpacking South America. Especially not solo. Obviously, I had pictured spending the next year living in a comfortable apartment, working in a nice daily job and making a quasi-life for myself among the other six million Chileans. However, when I was suddenly faced without a travel partner, I had a couple of startling revelations. The first being: I do not want to spend a year in Santiago.
I have amazing friends in Santiago and I am sure that if I truly wanted, I could rent a nice room in a cute apartment and find a good job and settle down for awhile. But suddenly, that option just seemed so... unappealing. It was almost like it seemed too easy. After I had been bailed on, I felt like I saw the world so differently: I was so trusting and reliant on others and I lost what I really wanted in the shuffle. And what I really wanted was to say "screw it all, I want to backpack South America".
And now I have to somehow manage to prepare for a South American backpacking trip in the span of 2 weeks. This means insomniac-ridden nights researching everything on backpacking, learning how I can use a bandana for everything from a face wash to a bandage and weeping silently over my beloved shoe collection as I prepare to say farewell to all my beloved and cherished pairs.
