I was curious to walk this stretch though. What would it be like to cross a border on foot that most cross in a vehicle? What would the feeling of standing between borders be like? Will I be alone? Do I have anything better to do anyway?

The final answer was clear: if there was one resource I was flush with as a solo traveler, it was time. Albeit, having failed to account for delays due to an unnecessary distraction by a momma hen and her chiclets followed by a less agreeable encounter with a posse of stray dogs, I had relinquished even that luxury.

Another car whisks by me, vrooming out of the customs house and kicking up a cloud of desert dust in its wake. A shoulder would be nice on this road. All 35 liters of my backpack sit heavier with each step.

Most of us have become well-trained at “saving time” but at the cost of knowing how to spend it.

Someone who spends all their free time building time-saving systems rarely knows what they will do with it once saved. Worse, they don’t even understand why they began trying to save time in the first place.

Time is indifferent to how efficiently we construct our days and is a resource that will diminish at the same rate no matter how much time we vainly amass.

Best not to delay spending it well today.

At their flat in the capital Santiago, we prepped four types of homemade mayonnaise and a fine array of pastries just in time to host an evening get-together with Marco and Sergio’s friends. Among the attendee list were the ambassadors to Chile from Austria, Malaysia, France, and Germany, a French opera singer who later performed acapella, and a Spanish communications officer who did well to reinforce his nation’s stereotype by smoking a pack by the hour.

The night climaxed when the Spanish officer’s artsy, young girlfriend began exhibiting her latest vaginal-inspired works to the clergy. Nothing is quite so entertaining as watching international bourgeoise react to interpretive, sculpted renditions of a woman’s genitals.

Learning is not as simple as just reading or watching an interesting piece of information. If it were, then consuming as much information as possible would be the ultimate goal—a belief that a certain sect of the productivity-obsessed community preaches. This is incorrect.

The means to a result are more important than the result itself.