Adventures of a Gringacita: Bonded through Brumhilda

Those of you who know me well, know that I do not enjoy being a lone wolf. This is something that for a long time I thought was a fault. Many people I know proclaim they need their alone time and I wondered if I was one who was dependent on other´s for my own happiness... maybe I should need my alone time too. I´ve decided that no, this is not a fault but rather a characteristic I´m going to embrace. I recognize I´m independent, heck I came to South America on my own, but I would much rather share my experiences and build relationships with those I meet along the way. This is exactly what I´ve been doing.

Alex and I arrived in Puerto Monte after a 22 hr bus ride from Cohaique. With our inability to keep ourselves fed, we were in ´lack of food´ meltdown mode when we met two Canadians staying at the same hostel. We may not have given the best first impression, but the boys swiftly invited us to be travel companions. The boys encouraged us to head south with them - but I had a deadline to end up north so we thought about renting a car. Fate decided that we would continue our adventures with these boys as there were no rental cars available and they couldn´t head south because of car permit issues. Our new family was solidified with a salmon dinner and an introduction to their little kitten named Brumhilda - I was sold.

Here are the members of our new family;

Eric the poet.

Brumy - my leading lady.

Caballo veijo.

Our trusty compadrito during the overnight drives.

Alex the dirtbag.

Harry the diva.

And myself.

So the following day myself, Alex, Harry, Eric, Brumhilda and a turtle in a juice jug loaded into the Mazda. Within the first 15 minutes we got a flat from driving over an open man hole. We carried on to Santiago hitting up the Lakes district on the way.