Hi everyone,
Well after an 11 hour flight on Thursday we arrived in Chile five hours before we had left New Zealand. Yes, we know we keep going on about it but we are confused, and so are our bodies! Going back in time by 16 hours will be the greatest time change that we´ll have had on the trip and it did feel pretty weird experiencing the same time of day twice but on different sides of the world - like Groundhog Day but completely different each time. Amazing.
Anyway, we will probably get over it eventually.....so let's move on and tell you about Santiago. It has been great so far and apart from wandering about in a jet-lagged stupor, we have been having fun building ourselves back up to full strength with a combination of meat, meat and more meat. And a few spuds. It's a real vegetarian's paradise round here... not!
Luckily we aren't too fussed about these things and have found the food here pretty awesome so far (especially compared to our fish finger-based camper van diet). We've certainly had some of the best steak, lamb, chicken, veal, pork, chorizo (you get the picture) here that we ever had, and all for bargain prices. And at this rate we´re confident we'll have some good J Lo curves to show off on the beach in no time!
Another plus is that if you hang around these restaurants for long enough (which we clearly have), it is difficult to avoid sampling a few excellent red wines ... well, we do have a wedding to research for after all... Anyway, before we give you the wrong impression (or perhaps worse, the right one!), we'd better tell you what else we've been up to in Santiago.
It seems a really nice city and a good one to ease ourselves into South America. It is pretty European in terms of architecture etc. and we are finding at least some words that feel familiar. Like 'brocheta' and 'vino'...
Ahem, anyway, as I was saying - there are lots of nice things to look at - especially since the city is set at the bottom of the Andes, and is surrounded on all sides by snow capped mountain peaks. Yesterday afternoon we got the cable car up to the top of San Cristobal park which sits on a hill in the centre of the city, and got some pretty stunning views as the sun went down casting pink light over the mountains...
More amusingly, we also found ourselves centre stage in the city's main square on the first day we arrived. We must have been properly jet-lagged as we agreed to be dragged into the middle of a crowd of hundreds of onlookers by 'Loco Freddy'...
Phil wants to make it clear that he entirely blames Sarah for getting us involved in this lunacy. It's not exactly the height of the tourist season in Santiago right now but her blonde hair and blue eyes mark us out as the only foreigners in town. Which meant it was inevitable that Mad Freddy would spot us as we stopped to see what was going on. Phil's sure that with his current hair growth, he fits right in...
Anyway, Mad Freddy (as the locals know and love him) managed to hold the crowd for a good 45 minutes whilst he had us put on wigs, prance about and generally act the stupid tourists (this took a lot of acting let us tell you!). The crowd seemed to find it all highly entertaining. Very amusing we are sure.
The weather was a bit more cloudy today, so we went for a dose of culture at the two main museums - one about pre-colonial South American art, which went back thousands of years and was fascinating - the other about Chilean history - which also looked excellent, though the exhibits didn't have any English 'subtitles' - so was a bit frustrating really. Not enough brochetas and vino either.
Weather-wise it sounds like we have a similar situation here to that at home where it's sunnier Oop North at the moment. So we're heading that way (and rather more seriously, steering clear of the floods which are currently affecting some parts of the south of the country).
We're going to be staying in San Pedro de Atacama for a few days, and using it as our base to go out on a few trips to the Andean salt plains, and to explore the Atacama desert. Then it'll be back to Santiago next Monday to see if there's enough snow on those mountains for us to go skiing...
So we'll be back in touch soon to let you know which type of piste we'll be going on next (sorry...). Until then, lots of love,
Sarah and Phil x x
p.s. in Beard News, the stubble is back. There's a lot of beard action around here and Phil was feeling a bit naked!
