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Published: November 10th 2005
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We´ll we finally arrived in Chile in a little town called San Pedro de Atacama. After a brief look around at our hostal options which were pretty crap for the money we decided to hop on a night bus down to the coast. We picked up a bus straight away with the Irish boys and Tanya from our Salar tour and made our way down to La Sarena, a little costal town north of Santiago. We relaxed a couple of days on the coast, although the weather was still a little chilly for the beach, before heading on to Santiago.
Santiago is a sprawling city of 5million people with the perminently snow capped Andes as a backdrop. We stayed in a little area called Barrio Brasil which is the University quarter so lots of nice little cafes and bars everywhere. we stayed in this great hostel that was the house converted and was quite grand in a modern way, done throughout with wood and bamboo.
Our first day in Santiago the horse races were on and since we missed Melbourne Cup we thought the races would be a good day. The track was really nice with lots of old
colonial features and really nice parade grounds for the horses. The race card consisted of 18 races (yes 18!!) and started at 2 and finished at 10 at night. We meet the Irish boys there and lasted out a good 10 races with very few winners between us before cutting our loses and looking for beer and food elsewhere.
We had a few days in Santiago so had a good look around downtown which was always busy and had some odd coffee shops....the more sedate have girls in very tight short skirts (oh, with low cut tops also) serving up expresso to a very much male (old) clientelle. The dodgier ones were unfortunately not easy to get a look in as whilst they advertise coffee they have blacked out windows and loud music playing no matter what time of day it is.
The city is pretty with big old buildings, and those that are falling down kind of add to the charm. Ther are a few great park and hills in the city that give a great look out. The outer suburbs also seem really nice and of course we loved it as there always seemed like there
Santiago
Plaza De Armas was some where we could sit outside and relax with a drink.
On one of the days we also headed out of town to a town caled Valprasio, which is 2 hours away on the coast. Being a Sunday at first it was quiet, but later picked up. The boys found a place to watch the Man U - Chelsea game and Tanya and I found a beach so we all pretty happy!
Then it was time to go. The boys were heading down south to the lakes district and we were heading east over the andes to argentina, in particular Mendoza; home of wine in Argentina (and pretty much Sth America) so not a place I was going to like....
Chile was lovely, relaxed and def more western, and we did enjoy it, but glad to be leaving - the food was not the best (national dish almost appeared to be a hotdog with guacamole on it) and we are looking forward to the brilliant steaks we keep hearing about!
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