Day 147 and 148 - ¡Chao Chile and Howdy Texas!

 

Looking forward to our big reunion after more than eight weeks, we skyped a last time with our family at home before our departure. We packed our things and tried to eat at the same restaurant we visited two days ago - which was closed today without any notice. Thus we had to try another well rated restaurant which happened to offer tomato soup, meat carpaccio and other delicacies. For a remote little town in the desert, the food quality in San Pedro was surprisingly good, at a quite reasonable price. We enjoyed the last bus ride of about 80 kilometers through the Atacama desert with these mind-blowing optical illusions, like wet streets or floating hills.

Two hours on the plane from Calama to Santiago, two hours at the airport, and nine additional hours in the plane to Houston. As my dad is Star Alliance Gold customer, we could bypass the long queue of backpackers and were soon talking in German to a nice guy that happened to be the station manager. At first he thought that my dad would fly Business while I sit in Economy. Because we both flew Economy, actually, we were upgraded spontaneously to Premium Economy, like on the flight from Auckland to Rarotonga. How nice that we could sleep on seats with so much legroom! We had a more or less good sleep, and it was very useful that you didn't have to disturb your neighbor when going to the loo. The only thing was that I had terrible tailbone pain from seated sleeping.

During the flight we gained three hours, so that we arrived at around 6 AM, Texas time. Already in Santiago my dad had figured out an IHOP on our way to the motel that saved the morning: the so-called International House Of Pancakes had opening hours like 24/7 and served American size meals, so that I wasn't hungry anymore, but felt queasy. I hardly could manage the hash browns, bacon and scrambled eggs. My hot chocolate came with a hat of whipped cream and extra marshmallow flavor, so that I nearly poured all of my ice cold tap water in it to lengthen it, but it was still way to sweet and creamy. For the last one and a half pancakes I had to order a take-away box...

By the way. Do there exist any "un-chained" restaurants, i.e. ones that are not part of a restaurant chain like Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, McDonalds, Denny's, Wendy's, ihop, Sonic and the likes??? It really is a pity that these way healthier opportunities are so hard to find, and so expensive, too! No wonder that you feel fit, healthy and thin among al these people you see in the shopping mall.

The rest of the day, by the way, we spent at the washing machine and dryer.

 

Pay attention on the Shopping Mall Santa's pose when he saw me