Normally progress works forwards, right?

There have been a number of occasions on this trip where we have been forced to question this assertion. One example: since Lucy was last here, local-character-suppressing globalization has well and truly arrived in South America, Venti Starbucks in one hand, slice of traveler-pleasing pizza in the other. On the other hand, wifi is now ubiquitous, which is pretty cool.

The most egregious example of modernity making things worse, however, came in Santiago de Chile. We had decided to stay in an “Aparthotel”. Strangely this turned out to be unlike the excellent New York Aparthotels in which Lucy and I did our investment banking training in 1999 (thank you DLJ; thank you Wasserstein Perella). I won’t go into the grotty, soulless details here for fear of depressing myself and boring you. Let’s just say that the biscuit was well and truly stolen by the well-advertized “free breakfast is included”. Behold:

Two (2) shrink-wrapped single slices of plastic white bread and two (2) small plastic-wrapped single servings of cheap corn flakes. Not shown were two (2) plastic-wrapped single servings of UHT milk and two (2) plastic-wrapped single servings of processed orange juice. As we declined this feast on day one, on day two the machine provided us with a total of four (4) shrink wrapped slices of plastic white bread etc etc. I never would have thought it possible to become so deeply depressed by someone giving me free food. I just suspected that if we had died in there we would have ended up buried in the stuff before anyone noticed.

Aaaanyway, we de-funked ourselves, headed over to the old fish market to eat our bodyweight in El Bouillabaisse, watched the Olympic Opening ceremony on TV (Mr Bean! And the Actual Queen! With James Bond!) and took ourselves to an excellent steak restaurant to drink red wine and eat our bodyweight in El Filet Mignon. Next stop Sydney!