The flight

All the guide books told us that you have to pay for your tourist visa, a one off payment, with cash.  This is not true – they do accept cards.  We were also informed that they don’t give change, this too is incorrect.

But what about the flight I here you ask?  When we checked into Brisbane we were sitting together but our forwarding tickets from New Zealand had us scattered about the plane like some human Easter Egg hunt. I had visions of some childless couple having to cut Truce’s meals for her.  Thankfully we were repositioned to be sitting together. 

The kids were able to curl up in their seats and sleep a third of the journey away.  As for Talluah and I didn’t sleep a wink and Talluah did not share my enthusiasm that we had technically watched three movies and had meals that she hadn’t prepared, thereby qualifying the flight as three “date nights”.

Landing in Santiago saw us enter the latest sport in the Airport Olympics:  The 100 metre Avoid the Taxi Spruiker Sprint.  Indiana lost points in the event because she made eye contact with one of the spruikers.  I was awarded a foul for replying in English and Talluah had two seconds added to her time due to hesitating before a giving a negative response.  Truce shone at this event due to her stature allowing her to slip in under the radar.

We’re adventurers, we take local transport.  Gringos chicken out in shuttle buses and taxis.  If we can’t take a train or bus we’d rather walk.  Anyway, here’s a photo of Truce and Indiana’s first Taxi ride in Chile.  

Living the life of a Rock Star

Fire Hydrants are people too.

This is a cute practice in the city to personify the fire hydrants.

A train trip for training.

The old travel adage of, if you can’t carry it, you don’t need it, has been running through our heads for the past couple of days as we packed and repacked our suitcases trying to maintain the twenty-three kilo limit and allowing for how much the kids can comfortably carry.

We caught the train to Brisbane a day early to make our 6:30 a.m. check-in more bearable.  Catching the train also gave us a chance to test our mobility.  The plan was to stay with my brother (the Brisbane Harpers) for the night so he could drive us to the airport at dawn.  It sounds simple enough.  However most of my family members have some sort of vegetable patch in their backyard.  Any family gathering is akin to a Farmer’s Market where passionfruit is exchanged for pumpkins and spinach is traded for lettuces.

My mother’s corn crop loves all the rain we’ve been getting and this morning, while we were having a quiet farewell morning tea, she asked if we could take some corn to the Brisbane Harpers.  Sure, why not?  How hard can if be to take luggage for a year overseas and a few kilos of corn?

Talluah’s parents drove us to the train station and we began our train trip which we had affectionately called Operation: Dry Run.   Train rides are rare for us and still very exciting for the girls.

To any parents who are reading this, you can skip the next part, you’ve experienced it before.

6 minutes into the trip:  Indiana says, “I’m hungry.”  We just had lunch twenty minutes ago.

16 minutes: “I stood on some chewing gum.”

28 minutes: Truce asks, “Are you allowed to dance on trains?”  I nod.

42 minutes: “I’m still hungry”  Crisps come out of the bag.

50 minutes: “I need to go to the toilet,” says Indiana.

53 minutes: “Where’s Indiana?” asks Talluah.  “She went to the toilet,” I reply.

“She’s been gone a while.”

I stand, “Maybe she’s having troubles with the door.”  I walk to the toilet and knock on the door.  “Are you OK Indy?”

Her voice comes muffled through the door.  “The lock is stuck.  I turned it towards unlock but it won’t work.”

“Try turning it the other way.”

The door slides open.

We had to change trains and with the inbuilt directional gene that all men carry I told my family that we had to cross the tracks to the platform on the other side.  We sized up the overhead walkway with its antiskid red painted steps and began our ascent.

Truce and Indiana pulled their little rolley suitcases, I lumbered with two rolley suitcases and a backpack.  Talluah  heaved our two lots of carry on luggage plus the corn for my brother and a separate bag for the clothes that we were going to wear for the flight.

At the top of the overpass I told the kids to wait with the bags then ran down to the bottom to help Talluah with her burden.  Once she was at the top I ran down the other side, dropped our bags at the bottom, kept the backpack on and ran back up the stairs to help Talluah and the kids with their things.  For a three year old, Truce carries her fair share. 

Once we were all safely on the other side I realised that the as an English teacher, swinging a whiteboard marker around is not considered suitable training for carrying 60kg of luggage on the Railway Stairmaster. I puffed over to a conductor and asked when the next train to Petrie was. 

“The Petire line is on the other platform,” he said.  “You’ll have to cross over.”

With 90% humidity and 32 degree heat we repeated our tag team effort to get the children and luggage up and over to the other side of the station.  As I joined my family at the bottom of the steps I felt like I was a contestant on some weight-loss reality TV show.

I think there’s time for one more repack to cull some more clothes.

Speaking of earthquakes...

Chile is renowned for earthquakes (terremoto).  In February last year they suffered from an 8.8 magnitude quake and earlier this year there was a terremoto measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale.  Earthquakes are a fact of life in Chile.  We have to expect at least one tremor within the next twelve months.

How do you broach the subject of earthquakes with two children who have never experienced any form of natural disasters?  My preferred method for new topics is to sit down with colouring pencils and paper.

One of Indiana and Truce's favourite books is The Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton.  Slightly dated but still a delightful tale of three children who climb a magical tree and visit the wondrous worlds at the top of the tree.

"What are you drawing daddy?" asks Indiana.

"Y'know that chapter in The Faraway Tree when they go to the Roundabout land and all the ground shakes and rolls?"

She nods - we've read the book to her four times.

I continue, "That's what I'm drawing."  This is where I start my planned, spontaneous talk about how we might feel the ground move when we are in Chile.

"Have you ever heard of earthquakes?" I ask.

Truce is happily drawing her version of Roundabout land.  Seven year old Indiana answers.  "It's when the plates under the ground move quickly and they shake the ground." 

Silence from me.

I didn't expect her answer to be so accurate.  I must send a thankyou note to her grade one teacher.

I continue my casual speech, "What do you think you do in an earthquake?"

"Nanna said when she lived in New Zealand as a girl her mum would put her in the bath tub and cover her with a mattress."

By this point my talk on Tectonic Plates and their relationship to the earth's crust as well as emergency procedures for earthquakes seemed unnecessary.  But like most parents I had to finish the conversation.  "You could also hide under a table, tables are good.  It's what the kids in Japan do."

I colour in the flowers on my paper knowing that our kids will be fine.

Buy shares in pharmaceuticals.

We knew some time back that we wanted to go to somewhere in South America and scoured through the Lonely Planet books comparing notes in the Dangers and Annoyances sections.

While some countries offered beautiful scenery and amazing cultural experiences they also had their quota of unpronounceable diseases that could be caught from swimming, drinking or even being near water, buying food from street vendors with a free ticket to the nearest hospital.

Chile offered a good balance of scenery, safety for our two daughters, healthy lifestyle and minimal creepy crawlies that climbed into your nose while you slept and laid their eggs in your brain.

However, our frail Australian bodies need some pharmaceutical assistance while we are on the other side of the globe.

Talluah visited the travel doctor and left with a stack of prescriptions to help us self medicate if the need should arise. Our collection of medicines came with very clear instructions: These ones are for infections and problems above the neck and these ones are for problems from the neck down.

The helpful pharmacist asked us various questions about our travel needs and with each question another lotion, tablet or powder was placed on the counter.  Our credit card came out of its hiding place and although suffering from third degree friction burns performed its duty once more.

The four of us went to the doctors to have our $630 injections to protect us from nasties.  The doctor pulled out a hypodermic smaller than my little finger.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s the typhoid vaccine.”

“It’s very small,” I replied mentally dividing two injections for four people into $630.  “You’d think you’d get a bit more for your money.”

The doctor gave me some chocolate to chew.

“What’s this for?”

“To trick the brain.  It concentrates on the sugar in the chocolate instead of the needle prick.”

I put the chocolate down.  “I paid $75 for this needle. I may as well experience the whole thing.”

We should only need 15 boxes.

There is no scientific term for standing in the middle of your house and visualising how many boxes you need to pack your life into.  The average guppy can squeeze its life into a matchbox assuming it doesn’t own the tank, filter and sunken pirate’s ship.  We pride ourselves on being higher in the food chain than a guppy.

Flashback to 2002: We moved to London for a year of adventure.  At the time we were still living with our respective parents and it was a case of packing our backpacks, closing the bedroom door and hopping on a plane.  Upon our return we bought a house and with the five items of donated furniture had moved house before lunchtime.  Almost eight years later we realised that we had a lot of stuff and had never packed a house before.  We needed to store it all somewhere so we could rent the house out.

Present day: Standing in the centre of our abode we held a cardboard moving box in our hands and using our advanced powers of spatial reasoning, which later became known as special reasoning, we came up with the figure of fifteen boxes to pack up seven and a half years of suburban living.

We were only out by fifteen boxes or 100% for the statisticians out there.  The next day a conversation with my parents transpired.  It began with the fateful line, “Mum, you remember my old room?”

Thirty boxes were moved at a speed equal to that of Pangaea.  Let the record show that I did want to by a station wagon instead of a sedan.  After refurbishing my old bedroom with a mountain of boxes we returned to our almost empty house.  Our garage was not included in the equation.

“Dad, you know that space in your shed?”   

Preparing to leave...

With less than a month to go we are frantically getting everything in order.  Our first official blog will be in February - until then: Watch This Space.