I am happy to report I did very very little in my 4 days in Santiago. Day 1, Wednesday, arrived at Eugene´s (Lorena´s Dad) home around 9am and had a breakfast of tea, bread, ham, butter, and jams - a regular start to the day here. Lunch was around 2pm, and we had Lentilles (??) a thick lentil stew with lentils, rice, onions, a bit of pepper, and topped off with a thick sausage. Dinner, or Onces, is taken at about 8pm, is tea, bread, ham, spreads and cake.
It is an unfortunate thing that the food here is SOOOOO good, because I definitely feel the pounds packing on from the amount of cakes and bread I´ve had the last few days. Maybe it´s the home cooking, maybe its the freshness of the ingredients, maybe it´s the comfortable settings, maybe it´s recovery from the trek, but I have been eating SOOOO much. I´m thoroughly ashamed of myself.
I do work some of it off though, playing with Antonia, an extremely active and playful 2.5 year old.
Thursday I went to Valparaiso. Friday morning I went with Eugene to a house he owns, that is now a nursing home. Eugene tells me it hasn´t raind properly in Santiago for many months, it is dry and many trees are dying. The whole time I´ve been here there has not been a cloud in sight, and the city sits in a thick blanket of smog. In the afternoon, I went out with Erika, Matias and Antonia to the city. We walked around, had ice cream, and saw some markets (highlight was this wooden indian toy, very rude, see photos). Friday night, I went out with some of Lorena´s Chilen friends, went out to Blondie, this club I had heard so much about.
The venue itself was cool, multi levels, a band room and a large dance floor at the bottom. However, there was some sort of goth party on, and we were very out of place in our normal clothes. I drank 3.5 piscolas (pisco and cola), and had the most horrible hang over the next day. Granted, they were large shots, but I wasn´t drunk at all at the end of the night. The next morning, Saturday, I had soooo much trouble getting up. For the first time in my life I took ibuprofen for a hang over, and even that didn´t help much. Eugene gave me a drink for the stomach, but later I vomited it up.
The worst part would have to be when we went to Cerro Cristobal (??), it´s a tall hill in the middle of the city, and the road up is very windy. The day was hot, and I was extremely car sick. Thats when I thew up. Not pretty. The hill itself was nice, an amphitheatre thing for delivering masses and outdoor performances.
My room at the house is very nice, and every night I have slept so well. It´s too comfortable a life here. I´m off to San Pedro de Atacama this afternoon, ready for more travelling hardship. Hope I haven´t gotten soft from this place!
