April 11 - 14
Originally we had a bus ticket for the journey from Mendoza to Santiago, Chile scheduled for 11pm (overnight buses mean that you save a night on accommodation and you don't waste a day) but after everyone telling us that the drive through the Andes is too good to miss we took the trip through the day. I'm so pleased that we did. The landscape was so barren but incredibly beautiful and made for one of the nicest bus journeys that I have ever taken. We were both pretty sad to be leaving Argentina as our time here has been amazing and I don't believe that we will beat it. On arrival at the border into Chile we were greeted with pretty harsh security. You have to have security checks on every piece of luggage and you can't take in fruit, veg, meat blah blah blah. You then stand in a line with your hand luggage on a table and a dog walks over everything, sniffing out any suspicious items. One woman got in big trouble for being in possesion of a lemon. I mean a lemon of all things, they had a real go at her. Thankfully Ashton left her banana on the bus but when we got back they had taken it. Rob dogs. We have heard many funny stories about this border from other travellers. One was a guy who had 2 machettes in his bag and was removed from the bus and never seen again and the other one, a personal favourite, was the girl who had a bag of eggs (god knows why) and instead of giving them up she stood and boiled them so that she could keep them.
We had no expectations of Santiago as Lonely Planet said it was a non descript city backed by beautiful mountains, some people hated it and others merely shrugged and said it was ok. We arrived at night so our first impression was the hostel. It was impressive and by far the best hostel that we have stayed in. It had good music, a lounge, a lovely terrace and feather down quilts and pillows. It was amazing but unfortunately we only had one night there. On day one in the city we went to Pablo Neruda's house. I had no idea who he was a noble peace prize winning poet and politician He built the hosue for his mistress turned wife and it was beautiful and we felt like we actually learnt somehting which is always a bonus. That night we stayed at The Aubrey which is a lovely boutique hotel in a cool district called Bella Vista.
April 13th was my birthday and although Santiago would not be the city of choice to spend it in I had a nice day. I initally thought that people had been too harsh about the city as I loved the graffiti, the colourful houses and the backdrop of mountains (you could barely see these as it is so smoggy) but then after a day of going into the city centre I found that I just didn't really feel it. It was redeemed by a visit to San Christobel which is a mountain viewpoint which overlooks the city. Now as many of you know, I love a good viewpoint (Arthurs seat being one of my favourites) and sitting up there under the statue of San Christobel listening to choir music I felt a little soft spot for the city. The birthday night was fairly quiet although we were treated to champagne and chocolates so that was a rela highlight of the day.
