They say running is not a spectator sport. Well, that may be the case in the U.S., but in Latin America if you go for a jog the entire town stops to watch as though it's the oddest thing that's passed by in the last 10 years. (Mind you, the onlookers are completely normal in that they're walking a herd of goats or maybe a flock of piglets down the dusty road.) If you stop to do a quick ab routine in a park (or more likely a dirt field), you soon have 20 neighborhood children flocking around you as they suppress giggles and attempt a push up. Or they just throw rocks at you. Largely (with the exception of Buenos Aires and our fellow Santiago marathoners), people in Latin America don't run or exercise. And in some places, seeing 2 tall blonde runners in shorts may in fact be the strangest spectacle of the decade. 
"Yet all these things had no effect on me, or at least not enough to resist the strong inclination I had to go abroad again, which hung about me like a chronic distemper."
This is the comparison of two airports. But really, it is a comparison of two cultures.
Exhibit A: Argentina
After allowing my bag to explode while couch-surfing in his three-room apartment, after cooking me delicious meals complete with bottles of wine, and personally doing my laundry, my new Buenos Aires friend drove me to the airport at 3:30 a.m. Wednesday morning – not only an ungodly hour, but also a ridiculously far drive outside the city limits. It was still dark outside when we arrived and fog coated the ground as though we were driving on clouds. He parked the car, despite my pleas that he shouldn't go out of his way anymore for me, should just drop me off on the curb and go back to bed. Ignoring me completely, he escorted me to the terminal where we were greeted warmly by an agent steering traffic and sincerely greeting both passengers and the new day.
When we arrived to the check-in desk, the agent politely explained that the flight was delayed indefinitely from the fog and that we should return in 20 minutes to check on the flights' status. “Thanks for parking,” I told my friend. “I know my country,” he replied. We left my bag and headed to grab a coffee. When we returned to the desk, all the passengers were hovering around the tiny female agent standing on top of a chair to talk above the crowd. She explained that the flight was canceled and that they were working on dispersing all the passengers to other flights. One rotund, balding man was arguing loudly and getting the crowd to clap with him to rally, as though they were picketers fighting for voting rights or a higher minimum wage. But somehow even as the noise increased, the anger never did, and for some reason I felt as though the entire performance was put on in an relatively amiable and jovial nature. Likewise the agents never raised their voices or rolled their eyes, but instead continued using their overly polite manners* and offered everyone a free espresso and croissant at the cafe upstairs on the company's dollar.
*(All Argentinians begin a conversation with: “muy buenas tardes, como estas?” and end with: “muchisimas gracias, muy amable, ciao ciao, beso grande.” It doesn't matter if it's two male friends or a business acquaintance, everyone gets a beso grande (big kiss) to end a phone conversation).
I was directed to the next company over and told that I would be put on a direct flight to Los Angeles – making my new itinerary much better than my previous one. As I stood at the sidelines, three different agents approached me to verify where I was going and to ensure I knew they hadn't forgotten me.
Exhibit B: United States of America
After spending 12 hours in LAX's international terminal writing, reading, attempting to sleep, and prolonging my inevitable entrance to the States by remaining surrounded by as many languages as possible for as long as possible, I eventually walk to the domestic side of the airport. As I walk through the automatic sliding doors, I am greeted by confusing signage (despite it being in my own language) and a long row of self check-in kiosks. There is no one to call the passengers to the front, and there is confused discussion among the row of sleepy travelers as to when they can step forward and assist themselves.
When I eventually check myself in, the machine does not realize that I am flying internationally and I can not proceed without paying my bag fee. I greet one of the five attendants standing bored behind the counter. I wave, signaling I have a question. All of the attendants refuse not only to answer any questions, but even to look passengers in the face. One young woman barely looks in my direction before shaking her head and remains standing with her arms crossed. She does not greet me or listen long enough to even know what my question may be, but instead says “I'm only paid to put the stickers on the bags.” Good job America, you have successfully hired human beings to do nothing that requires a lick of brain power, while putting any thinking that needs to happen into the hands of chunks of metal. Ford would be one proud papa.
The machine continued to flash at me: Do you need more time? Like it's citizens, even America's machines are impatient and obnoxious. I quit my session at the kiosk and abandones my long-earned spot in line to hunt down the only person who may know anything...a.k.a. the only human given enough power to own a walkie-talkie. After I wait on her to finish her gossip with four other workers hiding behind a computer so they can all look busy, she tells me: “I'm sorry honey, I forgot about you, you have to go stand in line 6 to speak to an agent.”
Another line for another row of kiosks. This time the kiosks are backed by humans that have graduated Lisa Frank sticker class, but have still not learned how to smile. I watch as a group of six Chinese get desperately confused with where they are supposed to go and when it is their turn to step forward to greet a computer. Their confusion causes a tangled traffic jam which the agents attempt to fix by simply shouting “step back to the yellow line” over and over again. Who's struggling with language more – the Chinese who are struggling to understand a second language or the Americans who can't switch out of robot-mode long enough to think of anything else to say in their first?
Once I arrive at the counter, I explain that I am traveling internationally and that my bag fee needs to be waived. “What's your confirmation code?” I explain I don't have the number because I was in South America and didn't have a way to print my itinerary out. “Do you have an itinerary with you?” she asks. “No.” “Do you have a laptop,” she asks. “Yes, is there free wifi?” “No.” So since she can't do anything without me having my number and because I refuse to pay as much to access the internet as it would cost for my bag, we're just in quite a pickle aren't we? You're going to have to pay now and contact corporate so they can reimburse you. There, America, is your problem. “Contact Corporate.” Your problem is somewhere between the kiosks and contacting corporate. Just when I am about to either cry from complete exhaustion or get pissed (hadn't figured out which yet, but one was inevitable), she says: “Oh here's the code.” She found the code on the ticket she had printed out before she began preaching about corporate. Thank you very much, I say. Silence.
Welcome home.
With just a little over 12 hours left in Latin America, the freak out is quickly sinking in and I am barely managing to hold down the small panic attacks that frequently send my stomach into a thousand knots. I have officially given up on putting together coherent closing thoughts, but one thing is at least certain: Latin America has changed me. The "how" might not be fully realized for some time still, but I do at least feel like I am a more observant, inquisitive, and active person. Now, the question is how to keep that new spirit alive upon returning?
Again, why does it take leaving home to ask hard questions about your home? Or about the world? And just as I was beginning to think deeper about this, I came to the page in Donald Miller's memoir Through Painted Deserts about his road-trip across the U.S. where he wrote: "It's funny how the questions never come up in the room you grew up in, in the town in which you were born. You have to stand back a few feet and see things in a new way before you realize nothing that is happening to you is normal."
The border between Brazil and the northern-most tip of Argentina falls smack in the middle of the Iguazu River. In the middle of this river (Iguazu meaning Big Water), lies one of the most breathtaking natural marvels in the world. Iguazu Falls is comprised of not one, but rather 275 sheets of water cascading down 270 ft to meet the raging river. 
This morning as I sat in the sun soaking up some much needed vitamin D after spending my days in cloudy Buenos Aires (damn you Southern hemisphere autumn!), I decided perhaps it would be a perfect opportunity to untangle the ridiculous amount of hemp and beads lathering my scrawny wrists. I should remove them while I have a chance to even out the tanlines, I vainly thought to myself.
Tired, cold and ready for some sunlight, Amanda and gradually worked our way north from the bottom of the world Patagonia up to Buenos Aires. Our first stop past the Argentinian border was San Carlos de Bariloche - a touristy ski-village littered with shops selling either North Face fleeces or famous chocolate bon bons. The city was quaint, the people were friendly, but we were still cold. After a day of wandering the streets and enjoying a delectable salmon dinner and our first (of what was to become many) bottles of Malbec wine to honor our 6 month travel anniversary, we once again packed our bags and headed the 20 hours north to Mendoza. 
It is revered. The entire city was closed down for the day. So...back to the drawing board. After 6 months of learning to dejar con fluya - go with the flow, we switched gears, bought cheese, crackers, salami, fruits, olives, guacamole (surprisingly not the girl from NM's idea), and of course Malbec and headed to the central park for an afternoon picnic and some time in the sun.
But then there's Chile. How to define a country that stretches for over half the length of all South America, stringing length-wise for 4300km from the driest desert in the world to as far south as Antarctica? Perhaps travel writer Sara Wheeler puts it best in her book on Chile "Travels in a Thin Country": The Chileans “always wanted to know what we of the west thought of the country, and it was hard to tell them that the majority of the west never thought of them at all. I often thought that I noticed a kind of national insecurity and identity crisis. Relentless foreign influence in almost all sectors of society presumably contributed to it.”
Europeans swept into Chile in the 16th century and never left, making it the country with the most blondes and blue-eyed people that we've encountered thus far. The women are always dressed to the nines, with high heels clacking and earrings jangling, carrying shopping bags stamped with brand names from New York and Paris. And while the capitals of Ecuador and Peru have bus systems that could contend easily with those in the States, neither come close to what Chile has to brag about. The subway system of Santiago is almost identical to that of Boston, and cabs are metered. I must admit, I actually miss haggling a cab fare down to half the asking price as horns honk and weave about along unmarked Central American streets.
Speaking of, Chile even has driving regulations and stoplights! And not just in the big cities, throughout the whole country. There are malls, and for the first time in 5 months our conversations with locals have been interrupted by cell phones ringing and the habitual, imperative need to answer every call. Chile is more developed than I had ever imagined it to be. Although here I must admit, like Sara Wheeler said of most people in the west, I honestly hadn't given it much thought before arriving. But that aside, coming from Ecuador and Peru I was not prepared for this degree of capitalism, consumerism, and “development.”
So with all of this then, is Chile's identity actually confusing or is it just that I am experiencing Culture Shock while still in Latin America that is causing my inability to understand this pencil-thin country? Perhaps a little bit of both.
After struggling the first couple of days after crossing the border into Chile to get the image of my dwindling bank account out of my head every two seconds as I contended with the undeniable fact that Chile is expensive and is going to eat a chunk of change, and after realizing that – like the States – Chile's political and sociological problems lie largely behind closed walls and in matters of policy paperwork, rather than in blatantly visible poverty and crumbling infrastructure, I redefined what I wanted to take away from the country. Instead of attempting to understand the sociological problems, I decided to view Chile as an opportunity to discover its diverse natural beauty.
They say that if you take the 4300km of Chile, flip it upside down, and then lay it on a map of North America you have a mirror image. The northern region boasts of intense desert, like that of Mexico or Arizona. The middle is farmland, with rolling green hills and pastures. And the south is glaciers, snow-covered mountains and ice – perhaps similar to Alaska and Canada.
To pull from Sara Wheeler's book again, a drunk told her: “When God created the world he had a handful of everything left – mountains, deserts, lakes, glaciers – and he put it all in his pocket you see, and as God walked across heaven it all trickled out, and the long trail it made on earth was Chile.”
After 5 weeks of being in Chile, I will say that I am thoroughly impressed. Chile's environmental wonders are indeed something to brag about. And the fact that all of it can exist in one country is truly remarkable.
Yet perhaps the fact that Chile is so diverse is its virtue, but also its crutch. The country has so much to offer, yet the north barely knows the south and the same goes the other direction. Chile has a population of 17 million (U.S. = 310 million) and is collectively twice the size of California. But when everything is all so stretched out, how could there be a national identity? And because of this “identity crisis,” it is somehow much harder to see past the consumerism and capitalism that seems to plague the nation. Thus, Chile's identity seems to fall less in step with it's fellow Latin American countries and more in step with that of the States – the presence of money and the intrinsically linked constant dissatisfaction. For once you see what you can have with just a little bit more cash, how can you be happy with the old and the used you already have?
Does development then come with a price of unhappiness? If a nation progresses does it consequently follow that people will become more disgruntled? Striving for more certainly cannot be seen as a downfall or a negative. Yet how then does one contend with the sense that wealth is some tangled up with cultural dissatisfaction...
When? 
Leaving the warm-weathered capital behind, we first took an overnight bus to Chile's Lake District, stopping for a brief 2 days in the small town of Puerto Varas - a South American version of Durango, Colorado. As we biked around Lake Llanquihue, we noticed that it was in fact quite cold and we patted ourselves on the back for finding wool hats at a second-hand clothing store. From Puerto Varas we then traveled further south to Puerto Montt - a town where it only took 30 minutes for both Amanda and I to enter a mild case of depression...oh hey seasonal affective disorder, it's been a while and I didn't miss you. But, with a plane booked in advance (the first time we have planned anything with more than 2 hours notice) we had no choice but to quickly leave the city of gloom.
