Everyone has dreams. You, me, that guy downstairs: we all wish to be better, to be doing other things, to be achieving more, to be doing something different. Some of them are delusions – for instance, I know I will never, ever go to space – but some, instead, can be achieved. And there’s no better feeling of achieving one’s dreams, isn’t it?
Last year I managed to tick not one, but two dreams of mine in a single go. If, reading on, you’ll find them a bit “meh” in terms of aspirational goals, well, I won’t be offended: each one to its own, I suppose.
These dreams were seeing Easter Island and the Atacama Desert. Easter Island, or Rapa Nui (a name I like a lot more and that will henceforth be using in this reportage) has fascinated yours truly ever since, aged six, he discovered its existence on none other than the
Junior Woodchucks' Guidebook, an obsession that only grew when I read, at uni, Jared Diamond’s
Collapse. Could Rapa Nui really be a cautionary tale for Earth? Did ecocide really happen there?
As for Atacama, well, the link isn’t as deep. I’ll be honest: my dream involves a pick-up truck (think of a Hilux,
sans machine gun on the back like in the Toyota wars), a lonely track in the sand, the sun setting behind some massive volcanoes and, on an infinite loop, the best tracks from
Kyuss. Yes, that was it. Sun, desert, the rumbling diesel engine, Josh Homme’s guitar and Scott Reeder’s bass in
Spaceship Landing. Basically I wanted a week of non-stop stoner rock.
Other Half (OH for friends) was game for all of it but she firmly prohibited the stoner rock side. Not even Truckfighters, or Red Fang. As a classically-educated person she found most of my music choices tolerable although she drew a line at anything rockier than, say, the Touareg blues. Oh well, marriage is nothing without a bit of compromise.
So here comes one of the best trips of my life. You can expect a mixture of plane classes, from BA First to the very last seat onboard a LATAM 787 and a mixture of experiences, from rainshowers on Rapa Nui to the cold sun of the Andes. If you want to read more I’d like to point you to my
blog (disclaimer: although traffic to the blog doesn’t generate any money to me, I do have links to a published book there).
Also, whilst on the topic of links, here is my other Trip Report published here on Flyertalk:
- To Kashgar: flying/hitching/hiking to Xinjiang.