Arrived in Santiago very tired and nervous about everything. Spent ages waiting at the luggage carousel only to find out that we were waiting at the wrong one! There were our bags ready to steal...ah well. Booked a hotel from the airport probably a bit pricey than we would normally pay but we just need to crash and we were told that the area - Provdencia - was quite safe. Ordered a cab at the booth and then made our way to the hotel. The taxi driver told us lots of info about Santiago. It really is pretty with the Andes in the background and the smaller mountains towards the pacific ocean. Our hotel was nice and we just crashed. Got up a few hours later and realised it was evening. Found a host of lovely places to eat just round the corner.
The next day we ventured and found the metro into town. Very quick, clean and all airconditioned. Had a look round the plaza de armas and the downtown area and then ventured to find some lunch. Had empananadas - like cheese pasties - and something called pastel de choco which was a real nice chicken in a corn sauce. That evening I wasn´t feeling to well and so Chris bravely ventured out by himself and went to the supermarket round the corner. He spoke in Spanish and everything and bought some Yakult stuff which did the trick.
Next day we had figured stuff out a lot more and went for a jog where everyone else was going for a jog. But the fumes are not very conducive to jogging so we weren´t able to re live our 32mins of running that we did in Perth. We had a look round Providencia and found a nice place to stay over Christmas. Had a lovely lunch with rice pudding for dessert! mmm and then made our way back to the airport for our flight to Lima.
Lima was very different to Santiago and after the journey from the airport we were a bit spooked. But coming into somewhere at 1am is always going to be like and I´m glad we had organised the transfer beforehand with the tour company.
