18th November 2007
After KL we stopped over in South Africa in Jo-berg and Cape Town. Didn’t get to go outside but talked to lots of SA people and got lots of photos of the airport for Alex.
19th November 2007
Arrived in Santiago at midnight and went straight to bed.
20th November 2007
The first day in Santiago we went to the city center and looked around the markets. Here we were taken notice of because we were white, but particularly by the men and DEFINITELY NOT due to their hatred towards us. We walk down the street and men stop their cars or hang out of them and make these amazingly loud kissing noises and whistle at us. We would walk past men on the steets and they would shout “hola chicas bonitas como estas?” ( Hello beautiful girls how are you.) It really is tiresome being so good looking and having men from every direction throw themselves on you. It’s very strange. They have no boundaries. If a lady is single here there really is something wrong with her because the men are like animals. They go crazy for any women. The open loving and public affection truly is disgusting. It is almost like all the women are going to fall off the face off the earth so they need to get as much loving as they can in before this happens. Actually it’s not loving its sexing and it’s repulsive. My god the men are sleezy and there is not that much talent AT ALL.
To get to the city we had to take the metro and on the way people stared at us like they were at the zoo looking at monkeys for the first time. I asked a few men, in Spanish, why they were staring at me; they either reply that you are very beautiful or were so taken aback that I was alive that they turned around and didn’t look back unless they thought I wasn’t looking. I still haven’t worked out if I like or detest all this attention. I seem to think it is ill deserved but they are definitely persistent.
Santiago is really beautiful, and vibrant with people and culture and shopping and vending everywhere. While in the city centre we went to the cathedral and it was the most amazing architecture I have ever seen. It is so large, so large in fact that for daily mass they hold it in a beautiful side chapel, however there are more than the one smaller chapels off the side to the main cathedral. The photos could never surmount to how amazing it was. I felt bad taking photos but I really did have to it is that amazing. It was decorated in the Spanish style with a lot of French influence, just like all of the houses and the whole atmosphere of the town, which has a lot of French influence in the architecture, which makes Santiago really appealing and unique. I don’t know how the French became such a big influence in the city, but it must have been the French contesting the Spanish invasion of south America because it is distinctly French in places. The combination of the Chilean and French styles is really stunning and like nothing you would see anywhere else. The cathedral is just so beautiful that we stayed and said a prayer even.
After this we left and we looked around the markets and a few other tourist spots, we walked to a mountain called San Christovcal in walking distance to the city centre. The mountain was so beautiful at the top and we could see over the city and to the Andes. Halfway up there was a zoo but we didn’t go in. The tram to the top left at one o’clock and we had 45 mins to wait before we could go to the top so we decided to have lunch at a restaurant at the bottom of the hill. Gemma had a little trouble ordering seeing she couldn’t read the menu or understand el mesero (waiter). We ended up getting two Chilean dishes and sharing them. One was chicken and the other meat eggs and chips- doesn’t sound that Chilean but it’s the way they do it that is. I stupidly ordered a café con leche, which should be a latte. However, and if I had taken any notice of the way the lady at our hostel drank her coffee every morning I would have noticed that it is warm milk with instant coffee and sugar stirred in. alternatively it may have been another Chilean pursuit to rip us off, as there was a coffee machine in the restaurant. With no time to refuse and not wanting to be rude I ended up with coffee and warm milk. At first it was very disgusting but after a few sips it was ok but not something I will be changing to. While we were eating our lunch, a couple came in to ask for coffee and they sat outside. The lady came in to pay for the bill, deciding she would not drink this version of his coffee. She started talking to us. She was the most amazing women I/we have ever spoken to in our life. She was Portuguese however grew up in a boarding school and was raised by Spanish nuns and therefore spoke Spanish really well. She lives in England now and therefore speaks flawless English and she also speaks French and Italian. She used to work for the Portuguese chamber of commerce and has traveled to many many countries in the world. Also because her husband works for an insurance company his clients are all over the world and she therefore travels with him as well. She was telling us all this interesting history about South America and also Australia and everywhere really. She knew so much. They both recently retired and are just traveling now- have been for three months and are planning to just keep moving between each continent. We were all in awe of everything she said. She was incredible. Beautiful and intelligent and elegant; the perfect women, to me anyway. She inspired me so much and I hope one day that I could be as well traveled and well educated as her she was amazing.
After lunch we took the tram to the top of the mountain. It was an amazing view. Chrissy tried to make up history of Santiago to be like the lady we met, she didn’t have much fact on her side but she gave it her best. I asked her what she thought this big mound of earth was in the middle of all these high rises and development. Her version of the Santiago history and how this mound came to be basically involved the Spanish killing all the Indians in every instance of history. A few people could understand English and were very confused by what she was saying but it didn’t stop Chrissy from believing that all the Indians were killed there.
At the top of the mountain there is a church and a really big and beautiful statue of the virgin because there was a claimed sighting of her here. People come to pray and get married because it is such a holy and beautiful place. We decided to take the chair lift- which were actually like the gondolas in New Zealand (a four seater dome that goes down the wire)… I don’t know what they are called, but we took them down to see the view instead of the tram. While we were waiting in the line I needed to go to the bathroom, not realizing that South American custom is to own private bathrooms and then charge use of them. It was going to cost me 15,000 Chilean pesos to go to the bathroom. I decided to hold. Finally we got on the lift but happened to get off on the wrong stop so we had to walk the rest of the way down the mountain. We saw a group of people practicing Spanish dancing in traditional costume so we watched them for a while. Then we saw a restaurant that was doing wine tasting. It was too expensive – just like everything in chile, so we just used their toilets… for free!! Somehow we got off the road and couldn’t find our way back to it so we had to trek through the forest which was fun until I slid into a bush full of thorns and cut myself all over. The other girls found it so amusing I didn’t really receive any sympathy at all. Finally we found our way to the bottom of the hill, but we were in the complete different direction to what we started in. we decided it would be safer to catch a taxi back to the hostel rather than risk being even more lost in the 40 degree heat. Once back at the hostel we decided to have a siesta and then go out dancing that night. However this siesta turned into an all afternoon and night sleep. We all woke up at 2 am and had to force ourselves to go back to sleep for the rest of the night.
21st November 2007
Today we decided have an adventure day and go water rafting and horse riding. So we got the metro to the outskirts of Santiago. This was a very different experience to the middle of Santiago. It was a lot poorer, and therefore at times scarier. People were selling socks and jewelry and ice cream and everything you could think of on the street to try and make money. There was one made who had a big hole in his leg, begging for money. In fact there were so many people begging for money I lost track of them all. It was very confronting. Before we thought KL was poor, but this was just devastating. And this was still Santiago, these people weren’t as poor as those outside the city. There was a line down one whole street and around the corner for people lining up for their pension. Thank god for the internet in Australia slash automatic debiting otherwise the whole of Inala would be lining up for days for their pensions too… low blow but still true. Finally we found the bus to where we had to go. We were going to a place called San Jose, and then from there San Gabrielle. On our bus ride this Chilean guitarist hopped on the bus and started singing us love songs. Gemma of course didn’t understand what was going on so we had to explain to her that he had dedicated the song to ‘the beautiful white girls at the front of the bus’… then Gemma didn’t know whether to enjoy the song or not. Then Federico got up to sing into her eyes. Chrissy and I took great pleasure in how uncomfortable this made Gemma, because lets just say the Chilean culture is not passive, especially while courting a women, and Gemma was feeling the full force of this Chilean affection. This was my absolute favorite part of Chile, this is what I was expecting, wishing for and it made my trip. For those who can’t imagine how exciting it would be to have someone serenade you on a public, almost broken down bus, trust me, it’s very exciting. It was also a nice change of pace from the sleaziness and whistling. Unfortunately Federico’s appeal was lost when he stood up and asked the bus for money and introduced his little manager, who despite being hit by the ugly stick a fair few times, was so cute… the little sidekick that doesn’t really do much at all. It was amazing. The reason that we know his name is because this was the day that I started becoming more confident with my Spanish and asked him his name and asked him to get on our bus on the way back. I am not entirely sure if I said it correctly but I think he understood.
The remainder of the bus ride was so much less eventful after Fredirico, however about 5 people hopped on to sell us things, CDs, sunglasses, ice-cream, water, and I can’t remember the other one. This concept of constant selling is really incredible. You would never want for anything. I think that if the concept took off in Australia we would be even fatter and glutinous than we are now… perhaps it is good vender/sales of goods laws exist.
Finally we arrived in San Jose. The lady at our hostel said that the only way to go between the San Jose and San Gabrielle was to hitchhike, or take a taxi… we decided that the most exciting mode of transport would be to hitchhike, so that’s exactly what we did. We followed the lead of two Chilean girls, who were locals of the area. They told us the best place to go, as we were originally planning to go to the hot springs further away from Santiago. They told us if we go out there we wouldn’t be able to get back out because the last bus left at 4 pm and by the time we got out there and got up to the springs we wouldn’t be able to get back. They suggested that we come to their area and go swimming in the river that is made from melted ice from the top of the Andes. They told us it is a really beautiful and peaceful place and that we would have just as much fun there as at the hot springs. It was so hot, about 39 degrees Celsius, however the water was like 2 degrees. So you couldn’t actually swim in it, but it was good for dunking in and cooling down or splashing yourself with.
After this we were walking back down to the road again and we passed the girl’s house. The older one (she was 19 and her cousin was 15) offered us lunch; a Chilean dish of mashed potato and egg and some salad; for all those playing at home: pure y huevo con ensalada. It was at this point that we met her son who was just over one year old. She asked us to wait down away from the house while she prepared the food. The three of us couldn’t stop thinking about how difficult this girl’s life was. She was terribly poor, her house was made from scraps of wood and for want of a better analogy was made how kids would make a cubby house; from scraps of wood that they scraped together from their parents’ left over materials or from the street etc. We couldn’t see inside, but from the outside you could basically summarise the house as it was not big enough to leave much to the imagination. It was at this point that we started to feel really bad, it was clear they didn’t have amazing quantities of food or money to be wasting on us. They were so kind to help us and offer us lunch and we will always remember their kindness and hope to reciprocate their kindness to all people we meet. They lived in the most beautiful place, amongst the Andes and on this serine land surrounded by a flowing river.
After this lunch we didn’t have enough time to go horse riding or water rafting, and we had to catch the last bus at 5pm. We hitched back to San Jose and waited for the bus back to Santiago. While we were waiting one boy ran past us to his friend screaming ‘oh my god’ which was in reference to us as he started talking about us too loudly to his friends thinking we couldn’t understand Spanish. As we waited an increasingly larger crowd continued to gather. Eventually they summoned enough courage to start calling things over to us. They spoke in English, and badly. Thankfully the other women at the bus stop were sympathetic, however everyone in the line found it hilarious how fascinated these boys were with us. It was rather hilarious, however tedious, because these boys were more fascinated than sleezy. Finally the bus came and we made the same journey back to the hostel. However on the way back no singing on the bus unfortunately.
We arrived back in the city centre, at around 7pm, (which actually feels and looks like 3 in the afternoon) Gemma and I walked straight ahead and Chrissy turned around and walked the opposite direction from the stairs up from the metro. At this point it was a casual dispute of directional choice between Christina and me. I believed it was straight ahead as that direction looked familiar and it seemed to be the way that we had previously traveled, Gemma agreed with me however as Chrissy had been to Chile once before we believed her and therefore foolishly followed her lead. As we continued to walk the way Christina suggested, it became apparent that she was entirely incorrect, yet Chrissy would not give in- she was right no matter what. She forced us to walk until we came to a Gelati store we had never seen before. This is when Chrissy realized she was wrong and even though she wouldn’t admit it, conceded to our direction- after the best gelati in the world. This then became her excuse. That she was leading us to the gelato because she knew it was there. That it was her big plan to get us gelato. We decided that she could buy us all a drink when we went out that night. A sigh of agreement was made, yet no formal announcement of defeat was made by the ‘too proud’ Christina. We arrived home at around 8.00pm – still light and decided to have our siesta… again not waking up… and Chrissy got out of buying us our ‘we won you lost’ drink. We really haven’t nailed the siesta yet. For some reason we just can’t get the ‘wake up again’ part. I have hope that eventually we will conquer it.
