Day 5 - February 11th

Day 5 - February 11th
Last drinks in Bolivia
Cacho and pool
Felt average again
I can't wait to get back to Adelaide and drink hard again

        I can honestly say, looking back, that the time I spent with Mélanie in South America during that first month or so of 2012 was a happy time, even though as I read these cards now it's clear that I was ready to go home. Mélanie and I had so many amazing times together travelling. We spent days sitting on buses or in awful hotel rooms. There was one bus ride from Chile to Argentina just before our 21st birthdays (hers was Feb 2nd and mine Feb 5th) when the waiter (attendant? I dunno, they only had them in Argentina, kind of like a flight attendant, real lovely guy), mistook her for a pregnant woman. She was waiting for the toilet and he offered her his seat, saying, “You shouldn't be standing up in your condition.”
        She came back to our seat, mortified. I laughed until I was red in the face. One afternoon on the bus we wrote messages to each other in pen on our backs to pass the time. They were like love leters... but... like on backs, you know? Like beautiful, fleshy love letters.
        I wrote mine on her back in English and then took a photo of it so she could read it later. She wrote on my back in Spanish, with these French 'M's that looped downwards and looked more like 'n's. She had me read it out loud and corrected my mistakes when I translated it into English. We took some happy photos, and shared turns playing Fruit Ninja on my phone, then when she fell asleep I turned the brightness down and read books that I'd downloaded when we had WiFi: 'The Brothers Karamazov', 'Edwin 'God' Little', and 'On The Road'.

        My flight out of Bolivia was set to leave the morning of Valentine's Day 2012, Mélanie was flying back to France a day or two later. If you've never cried in an airport before, you've missed out. It's sad, but not in that bitter way like when someone dies, it's more uplifting. Maybe I'm just remembering it like that because it was so long ago – it definitely did hurt at the time – but if you've never cried in an airport, you're fucking up, man. Go get your heart broke, what are ya, a coward?

Click here to read the next part - Day 6 - February 17th