I have returned a couple of hours ago from what has easily been the trip of a lifetime, and the experience of my 17 year existence by far.
On the morning of 1st August a coach of 50 of us and 5 teachers set out for the long anticipated School Rugby Tour to South America with little idea of what a time we were going to have. I'll try to keep it as brief as I can but this is definitely going to be a big post.
We had a long coach journey down to London from Manchester, more precisely Gatwick where we would then fly to Madrid. I've not been to that many of Britain's airports but dear lord, Gatwick is horrible. It was empty, so expensive, in the departure lounge there wasn't really anywhere to sit.. and everyone we noticed looked so miserable. That must be the effect being a Londoner has on someone, but it meant we were already missing Mancunia and we hadn't even left the country! The flight to Madrid was fine, but it was there where we started having problems. We had made slow progress (took 13 hours Manchester-Madrid) but then our flight to Buenos Aires was delayed by 2 hours! When we finally got on the flight it was cramped, sweaty, the staff were arsey all par one who was a goddess, and there was no entertainment and crap food! It was an overnight flight but due to the awful conditions no-one got any sleep, we also had to make an unscheduled refueling stop at Rio so we were an hour late for our connecting flight to Santiago (Chile) but luckily because there were 55 of us the plane was pretty much empty so they waited for us.
Upon arrival at Santiago it had become apparent that about 16 of our bags hadn't made the journey, and they were still at Madrid airport. I was one of the lucky ones, but several people didn't have their bags that night so had to wear the same or borrow clothes off people for that evening and pray that the bags got to our hotel before we left next day for Concepion. Luckily they were sent on the next flight so arrived at the hotel just before midnight.
From Santiago Airport we were on the coach for another 2 hours for a city tour. We took in such sights as City Hall, an Independence Monument, City Hall, a Communist Protest in the Main Square, and the main attraction, Santiago's central Post Office. While en route we drove along and managed to get a real feel for the city, especially as i was taking so many pictures of people and places. It was vast (much bigger than Manchester), had real poor areas, buildings weren't that greatly maintained, homeless people and stray dogs lined the pavements, but the people were all smiling, waving and giving peace signs to us on our coach which was nice. We arrived at our hotel and it was seriously plush, it was in the nicest part of the city we had seen, and was the first hotel I'd stayed in that had doormen. For our first night we walked to the nearby mall, had a meal and ended up with all of us new Year 13s in a bar on a table next to the teachers. The year below had all been rejected because of age, but with us the bouncers simply asked if you were 18 and if you said yes, that was enough. I wish it was like that back home! Anyway we all had drinks and went back to the hotel for about 1 for a night of mischief at the hotel via the supermarket for more booze.
Things got a little hectic so the next morning we all got a telling off from big Nige (tour leader) but he couldn't really dwell on it because we had to be on the coach for a 6 hour journey to our next destination, a small coastal town called Concepion where we would be staying with hosts from the local school, and we would also play them. On the coach i realised my £100 camera, which was new for Kos wasn't in my hand luggage, but i thought maybe it was in my main case so thought nothing of it.
When we arrived in Concepion at first we pulled into a horrible little neighborhood, and there was chaos on the coach. "I'm not staying here Nige!" "Back to Manchester please Sir!" etc. etc. but luckily for all the coach driver had just taken a wrong turn. When we did find the school it was in a really nice little neighborhood of great houses which all of the pupils lived in. The school was a nice building, and when we got inside the main hall there was a whole load of Chileans waiting for us. The room split, us, the English on one side, and the Chilean lads and then their families separately on the other side. The teachers stood in the middle and one by one names were read out as boys were paired up as Host and Guest. To say the atmosphere was tense was an understatement, we had never experienced this before and we all wanted decent hosts or to be with friends. I was on my own and paired with a guy called Alejandro. All the pairings were random so no-one really managed to get in with a mate if they were in a pair, which was the fairest way looking back.
After smalltalk i learnt Alejandro was also 17, he lived literally 3 houses down from school, and spoke near perfect English mainly due to a month long trip he took to England over Christmas. We went back to his and spent the night talking about the things we had in common, football (as Man City + Chelsea fans we both hated United), rugby (positions, school teams etc.) girls (he loved it in England and called it Paradise because Chilean girls were so hideous. He called them "creatures"), music (Alejandro likes "Mainly Progressive Metal" and family. Alejandro had 2 brothers, one older who was at University doing Law in Santiago and i would meet later who didn't speak a word of English and didn't like me i don't think, and one younger brother who spent all of his days on guitar hero on the Wii. Over dinner i spoke to his parents (both lawyers) who kept telling me how "Chileans are different, not weird" which made me feel really awkward. In the end they warmed to me as the Dad watched Life On Mars in dubbed Spanish, which my mum and dad both watched, and i promised them i wouldn't drink or try and drive anything while over here. They had a bad experience with some guests from Birmingham who got plastered and threw up in their house, which didnt go down well especially as they were lawyers so made sure Alejandro followed everything to the letter. Afterwards a few other hosts and guys from my team came round and we played MarioKart on the Wii before crashing out and going to bed.
The next day we traveled to Chiflon Del Diablo, a coastal shanty town which was centered round an old mine, the only one in the world to go down underneath the sea. The mine was low, dark and not too kind to my back so i wasn't sure if it was the best kind of preparation seeing as we were playing our hosts that afternoon. Anyway, the day was made bearable by Ingrid, our new Chilean tour guide who was hot, hot, hot! The mine was the lowest in the world that was open to tourists, the only one in the world that went below sea level which was open to tourists. It had been used to mine carbon back in the day so we learnt about the methods, safety measures or lack of, the dangers, and the accommodation of the miners. After a while though every mine shaft started to look the same so it wasn't the greatest excursion.
We went back above ground and were greeted by another group of stray dogs but we had business to attend to, so went back on the coach to our match to dish out several helpings of Woop-ass to our hosts (Wessex) and their sworn enemies (St. Johns) who played the first team as they were a better rugby standard. They were still no match for us.
That night the Chileans took us to a kind of poolhouse place where one of them had the keys to and we all sat around, had a BBQ, and drank lots of Pis-cola (In Chile they drink Pisco, similar to Whiskey, with a mixer, in this case Coke) This wasn't the beer we were used to so naturally we were all pissed after just a few but the Chileans humored us and it was a very good night.
Me and Alejandro left early and went back to his, i told him stories from home, we talked about the game etc. and it was all great because he spoke perfect English.
We left Concepion the next day and to be honest i was a little sad. I had grown attached to this new friend i had made, and his family who had treated me so well and welcomed me into their home during those last few days. I left my gifts (some United stuff, tea towels and English themed stuff for the mum and a tour tie for the dad) and facebook/email addresses and left. Alejandro's little brother is on a school trip to England next year, so i said if he came it would be a pleasure to repay the favour and have him at mine so we shall see...
Next destination.. Curico 4 hours away!
The camera was nowhere to be found in my main bag so has now been declared "Missing In Action."
