So Marcello and I are here in Santiago, safe and sound- although we did think we in serious trouble when we arrived in Santiago- but i'll get to that later.
New Zealand- Ruby's First Time at the Snow
We weren't in New Zealand for long and we did spend a lot of our time in a car. We had what was meant to be a 4.5 hour drive to the snow which ended up being somewhere in the region of 5.5 hours I think.
Anyways, my first time to the snow- could have gone better. I chose to try snowboarding as my friend Jas was going to try it and rather than try skiing solo I thought we could make a fool of ourselves together. We decided to have a lesson for beginners in which we were placed in the "Penguin Group". There is no other way to describe the whole thing than as a serious fail. I lasted maybe 20minutes, most of which was either spent writhing around on the ground in pain because my boots were too tight or falling over. After 20 minutes I crawled (literally) to the side so that I wouldn't be run over by small children who had mastered the art of snowboarding or skiing within 20 minutes. Meanwhile Jas attemped another 20 minutes of the class only to be called a retard by the instructor. Follow this with a failed attempt to build a snowman and you can see my first experience of the snow could have been better.
Meanwhile Chel was skiing black runs or something (ski talk which requires you to make it past the flat bit at the bottom to understand) and making friends with children who were equally as skilled as he is on skis/snowboards.
Santiago- why you should learn the local language
So Santiago- after a 10.5 hour flight on which Marcello had 1 our of sleep and I had about 4 we arrived. We were meant to have a taxi waiting for us at the airport but due to a mix up there was no one waiting for us. Amongst the throng of taxi drivers waiving signs for their pick ups and families pushing each other around there were also some taxi "sales men". Quite simply they look for anyone who looks a bit lost and offers them a taxi and makes you feel like you're being screwed even if you aren't (we thought we were being overchanrged but turns out we weren't). So we follwed this guy outside who put us in a car being driven by one of his associates.
As first impressions go, we were quite impressed as the airport is surrounded by snowcapped mountains (the Andes) and it's quite beautiful- aside from the smog.
So while we're looking at how pretty the mountains are I see a sign pointing to Santiago which our driver does not take. And then he takes a phone call and makes a turn...and then another turn. By now Marcello and I are murmering that we don{t know whether we're going the right direction. At this point the driver takes an exit off the main road onto a side road and stops the car. Another phone call. He says something to us in Spanish. All we can decipher is "uno problemo". He drives on and then takes another street of the main road- onto a street that makes us both feel uncomfortable. We try to communicate with him about what he's saying. Something to do with there's a problem and he has to take a different way- he has to go through the back streets- there are police. At this point Marcello and I are scared. The street we're on has groups of people here and there and we don't feel safe. Finally between my basic understanding of Spanish and some miming we gather that there is a student deomstration and it has been violent and there are police hitting down students. Marcello looks up a side street and sure enough there are police which makes us feel asw though maybe this man isn't about to drop us in the middle of nowhere to be robbed. We see signs of the demonstration with piles of bricks strewn across the footpath and the remenants of a fires here and there.
Meanwhile i'm scrambling through the map of Santiago that we have in the lonely planet (which is not particuarly large)and I locate the street that we're on. Ok, we're actually in the vicinity of our hostel- some of the fear subsides...until we turn a couple of corners and there are streams of people walking down the street in the opposite direction to us. Not sure who was more concerned at this point- the driver or us.
Eventually we found our hostel, which is lovely. We have our own room (king size bed- well 2 singles pushed together) and our own bathroom (which is larger than our one at home).
When we ventured out today we learned that Santiago really isn't that scary a place- we just arrived at a bad time. We have learned that there are a lot of problems with students in Chile and so we will make sure we keep away from any student demonstrations....or any demonstrations for that matter.
There are dogs everywhere but they're harmless (no we're not patting them). Yesterday there was rubbish everywhere and it was pretty gross- first thing we saw when we looked out our window- but it was all collected today.
The Chilean sewrage system can't handle toilet paper so you have to put it in a bin next to the toilet with everyone else's used toilet paper. Bit gross but great way to get you using the minimum amount of toilet paper required!
Our current plan is to stay in Santiago for 2-3 more nights then head South (hopefully past a windery) and then make our way over to Argentina.
Will keep you all updated with our trip- hopefully there aren't too many more heart pounding moments.
