Time flies when you're having fun, so we couldn't believe how fast the few days we spent in Valdivia with Javier passed. We did our Vespa rides together, drank our beers (and some nice “Terremoto” cocktails that Javier's mom made us), toured the city, went to Javier's students' guitar concert, learned about the history of Valdivia – which was almost completely destroyed from an earthquake in 1960 – but also about the Chilean social uprising that had just begun to subside with the promise of constitutional revision, we saw the sea lions relaxing in the harbor, went on a Vespa ride in the countryside, ate salmon al disco, talked and laughed with our hearts and when we left, we had a new friend in the South of Chile.

Next stop: Concepción. Try as we might, we can't remember details from the 500km ride from Valdivia to Concepción, but we certainly remember our Christmas experience in the Airbnb room we rented in haste and only looking at the budget factor. The cost of living in Chile is not low at all, so we had put our trip into "economy mode" and were trying hard to keep the budget under €50 per day. Somehow we found ourselves in a student's room in an apartment where three other students lived and – as expected – some of their friends who came and went. In fact, on Christmas day we found ourselves cleaning their house and cooking them fresh healthy food and feeling like we were the uncle and auntie who came to visit the nephews and help them a little with the chores!