Made it to Santiago Chile. The plane trip was 11 hours, short apparently compared to other long hauls but that was long enough for me. Got tingly nerves and was pretty uncomfortable. (Thanks Val for those plane socks!) But never fly LAN Akl to Santiago! (Maybe nz gets the reject planes or something). There was no leg room!
The view of the Chile mountains from the plane was awesome, snowcapped peaks all along the horizon! Amazing etc etc. If you ever fly into Santiago from west, sit on the right side of the plane.
I stayed in calle Londres, Santiago. A nice cobble street with colonial buildings, which luckily is near some good plazas. Had a frustrating experience trying to communicate to buy some food. Had learnt some random phrases in spanish but it was obviously not enough. Should have studied for a year or something because I found it really really difficult! Couldn´t understand anybody nor could I speak well enough. And apparently Chileans speaks very fast.
The plazas were bustling at about 5:30pm. Interesting people. Nice city but a bit fast paced for me. Plenty of live entertainment, shoe shiners and craft stalls. I noticed too.. HELADO (ice cream) signs everywhere, even McDs had it´s own Helado kiosk like part, separate to the restaurant. Obviously Chileans love their ice cream!
(I had some photos of Santiago to post but a STUUUPID boy in Quito who I entrusted to burn my photos onto cd, actually wiped all my santiago photos so... not happy Jan! He refused to give me a refund too, how rude.. never go to a blue net place on Av Amazonas, Quito.)
