Ah, the many wasted hours of my precious youth searching for the elusive Carmen. Damn you Carmen!! You´ll be pleased to know that not only did I NOT throw up on Andrew, but I didn´t even feel sick. Awesome non-windyness. Kind of made up for Mr-pack-stuff-I´m-not-supposed-to-and-hold-up-the-entire-bus-for-an-hour, it took us two and half hours to get through the border. It was considerably colder here too! Funny that, I hear you say. It´s only in the middle of the Andes. Shaddup.
Santiago is quite a nice, albeit smoggy city. It is again slightly more western than Argentina, and thankfully only slightly more expensive (most likely to due to Argentina´s economic boom). When we arrived it was pouring with rain and as a consequence couldn´t investigate anything until the next morning.
Our hotel is around the corner from the President´s house, which has swathes of guards floating around and sometimes they block off the block for some reason or another, which is only mildly irritating. Around the corner is also a gorgeous little corner store with a beautifully cheerful owner who greets us with a knowing smile each time (we go there FAR too often) and attempts to converse with the clunky tourists as they indulge themselves in his cheap and tasty wares.
Santiago, like Argentina, has several peatonal areas and LOADS of stray dogs - I saw six on a single corner this morning. Crazy puppies. It´s quite hard not to feed them though, a lot of them are not your average ugly mutt - many of them are half breeds no doubt dumped by disappointed owners of promiscuous bitches. It´s also another signal that we are yet again in a wealthier country - more dog breeds. I´ve seen 4 boxers alone so far (they´re so pretty!!). But apart from the stray dogs, it´s not unlike Melbourne - skyscrapers, people rushing from one place to another, loads of newspaper-magazine-chocolate stalls on the corners...just everybody speaks Spanish and the cars are a little crazier. Plus, through the smog, haze and clouds and if you squint real careful like, you can see the Andes in the distance. We were lucky to be able to spot them, but it´s not exactly postcard-esque.
We walked to Mercado Central and around town and had a very expensive lunch (about $30 worth) of great tasting sushi (drool). Sure as hell beat the supermarket food we had for dinner!
Yesterday we went walking around a park and then scaled up a big FO hill to see a really big virgin. I´ll just leave that one open for you all. It was good cardio, huffing and puffing our way up, whilst all the normal people took the funicular and walked down, laughing at the panting tourists. At the top was a nice view (through the smog, mind you) of the city and I swear we could just see the Andes.
And that´s about it really. Today we met up with Francisco, a guy Andrew worked with at Nakiska and I think we´re going to Valparaiso with him tonight. Don´t know when I´ll get net again because we´re staying with Francisco at his parents´ beach house for a couple of days, then down south to Temuco to spend another couple of days with another Nakiska friend. Hope you´re all well! Keep the comments flowing, I love reading them!
Santiago photos
