My friends know I haven’t bought a thing in at least two years. Except maybe some underwear, socks, and an occasional CD or DVD, I had totally stopped buying anything ahead of my trip.

Even when I had the urge to have something, the thought that I would spend that much to put it into storage soon after and forget about it, made me put back most of the things I wanted to have.

On this trip, the weight restrictions on my luggage have kept the urge to shop for souvenirs in check so far. In Rio I bought two little magnets, in Sao Paulo a tiny book of an art exhibition…

In Buenos Aires, I cracked. On the very last day. I saw this cute brown leather bag, a man purse or murse as my friend Renato calls them, and I had to have it. It wasn’t even cheap. But I wanted to have one other bag than the orange one I keep dragging around. And ok, one thing was permitted, I told myself.

But maybe my resolve is thinning. Santiago has some great shopping areas and ferias with handcraft items, leather bags, and so on… Barrio Italia is particularly dangerous. One leather shop with hand made leather bags in particular.

Yes, I was tempted to buy another leather bag, only two weeks after the one in Buenos Aires. They also had beautiful leather cases for the iPad, but not the Mini, otherwise I swear I would have bought one.

I got a new case for my iPhone though. My old California Republic case is breaking apart. So I got a new one out of wood, looking classy and so old-fashioned on the phone… The price was totally ok, so I could justify that without losing any sleep.

Then however I ran into that Domingo feria, in Mil M2, the same place that had hosted the video premiere ten days earlier. It’s a fantastic place. The front is a kind of changing gallery, where you can watch the artist create their art. The place calls itself a Cultural centre for innovation and citizen’s participation.

It had been totally transformed since the video/club night, and was now hosting a number of stands for art, books, clothing, phone cases, and a number of food stands in the other room. I can spend hours in places like this.

One stand had those bags made out of recycled rubber. I wanted to have one for a long time already. The price was good, but I wasn’t sure if the laptop would fit. So I went home to check it and get some cash…

Ivan, who has been making these bags himself for two years now, recently won an Award for Entrepreneurship in the category of innovation by the state-owned Bank for Micro-Enterprises.

He had learned for a year and a half how to design the bags, how to sew them, improve his technique, and for 7 months now he’s out on the market. He says he hasn’t earned much money with it yet, but his order book is full.

Christmas is coming, so he’s going to all the different fairs and mounts his stand on the weekend, while working as hell during the week – otherwise he has nothing to sell at the fair.

He picks up his material mostly on highways, thrown away tires that lie around on the side of the road.

So, by buying that bag I helped Chilean micro-enterprises, and, as a side effect, got a free ride to Valparaíso the next day!