I came back to Santiago after having traveled several months down south. It was the perfect way for the trip to come around. I met Ivan the hostel owner again and just felt great to have a familiar face again. Coincidentally a Dutch guy Ian was at this same hostel planning to buy a car and drive south when I was looking to buy a van 4 months. The weekend I was in Santiago, he also came by to the same place where both our journeys started. Completely unplanned but it felt the perfect way to make my trip complete.

While walking on the road a few days earlier someone calls out my name and I see my friend Ashley who i climbed with last time running into me on the street. I think you really feel at home in a place when you start running into friends on the street.

Ashley was the one with whom my climbing journey started 4 months ago and we had stayed in touch to climb together but meeting on the street like this was completely coincidental.

Even if I don’t believe in fate, I do want to believe in it. Life is beautiful when you embrace mysticism and accept not everything needs to be explained. There is a deep beauty in ignoring the explanation behind coincidences and just embracing deeply how you feel when the coincidence happens.

I met up with a friend I had been climbing down south in Patagonia with and we climbed together with Ashley and Ale, my climbing friend from when I was in Santiago several months ago and for me, in that moment my adventures felt complete.

I had met incredible people around my travels and now could proudly say I have friends in Argentina and Chile, who I know would love to climb with me wherever I am in the world and vice versa.

We humans are a social creature after all. Self love can help you live confidently in almost every aspect of life but it doesn’t take away the deep underlying need we have for friendship, romance and relationships.