Time to depart the desert. We woke up early as it’s a bit of a drive to the airport in Calama and my previous experience made me think that we’d get bogged down in the process of returning the rental car. Rental car procedures being what they are in South America. We made good time and as it happens we were the first flight out that morning so the airport wasn’t even open yet. Nor was our rental car agency. I dropped the keys in the box and just assumed that’d work out alright. We had to stand around outside security for a while waiting for them to open the airport and when they finally did there was a critical shortage of coffee inside.

Flying around Chile is really cool because the Andes, at 20,000 ft, aren’t that far away from the plane even at cruising altitude and as they are constantly covered in perfect white snow it makes for some great views.

I had a quick connection in Santiago to get back to Buenos Aires but Hayden had a good eight or so hours to kill so we took a detour so I could let him into the Pacific Club so he could at least have access to food and alcohol. Left him there and for the first time in a long time we realized the next time we saw each other would be in Colorado.

I walked right onto my plane for the short flight and long drive back to my place in Buenos Aires and then crashed.