Where in the world is Lani?

Hi everyone

Its now 5pm here and Ang & i have had a pretty good day. We started early by catching the metro into the city and started exploring. Santiago central is one massive mall that runs down the main street, lined with shops like mobile phone carriers (none that will send this gringa a sim card though), fallbellas (department stores) and a few small shops - the shopping is not good here though as everything is more expensive as its the city.

While shopping we were alerted to something on the street by the sound of pounding drums; and walked outside to discover a visiting Brazilian brass band who are here before carnivale. They were all dressed up and threw confetti all over the street. Just as they finished, a local youth performing arts troupe started up down the mall - brass, drums & music - it was spectacular! Everyone was dancing in the street, swaying to the S.American beats!

After lunch Ang & I caught the metro to the Statue of the Virgin Mary on Cerro San Cristobal in Santiago outskirts. We then caught a rickety & steep mountain train up the hill to see the statue & chapel up close. After sitting at the statue and looking over the entire city of Santiago for an hour or so, we caught a cable car down to mid way & then the same train down to the base. It was spectacular to see the Andes from the cable car as well as the entire city - even if it is covered in smog at the moment.

We have been back at the hostel about an hour and are just going out for supplies. We are planning to get on a bus tomorrow and go to the town of Valparaiso on the coast - about 2 hours away - for the weekend. After that we will head to the nearby town of Viña del Mar for some wine tasting & more beaching. Who knows what we will do next......

 Hope all is well back in OZ. We may not have as good internet connection for the next week so i'll keep in touch as much as possible.

By the way - our word of the day is "sin gas" which means uncarbonated. We kept trying to buy water and kept getting bubbly water until we discovered water "sin gas" which is just plain H20. We are learning every day!!!

Until next time, Lani