what the fun-icular

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Hi kids,
Very short one from me at the moment, just a quick description of our time in Chile (Ill write more later or make bo write more)
We arrived after a 0330 wake up call, at about 2pm into our hostel in Santiago. As we had only 1 full day, we immediately left the hostel and went walking to find the plaza de armas. We ended up in a nice park with a nice museum, in the complete opposite direction to the plaza. But atleast we saw some nice stuffed animals. Bed was very early.
Next morning we were up at 9am, on the right road to the plaza. We stopped at a quaint pizza establishment for some breakfast, however we are still waiting on Bos avocado on toast. We spent the morning looking around the plaza, before heading towards a park with the national zoo in it. We found a hill. There was no entrance on our map to this hill. We walked for a few hours. We did not get onto the hill. We began to think the hill was imaginary.
After a short park in one of the parks (full of lovers. yuck), we saw what we thought was the entrance to the hill. So we headed onwards and upwards, to see the lovely statute at top. To get to the top we took a nice steep funicular ride. Im hoping our travel insurance covers funiculars., but it was a worth while risk - the statue we initially thought was Jesus was becoming more femanine, to the point where we decided it must have been Mary or Jesus after a very nice makeover. Turns out it was Mary.
Next came a cabel car ride down the mountain. I dont think the guides get many people screaming on their cabel cars, they stared at us quite a lot. Eventually, we ended up home, for a early night to prepare for a 5am taxi to the airport.

LIMA-NESS
So some things we didnt mention from Lima
We were heading to the beach, stopped at traffic lights, when a bike buymped us on the drivers side. While we turned to shout at him, a guy reached in the passenger window and stole the stereo cover. So smooth. I was impressed. Ivan was not.
Then, we got stopped by the cops, who claimed that the surfboard on our roof was illegal and tried to get money out of Ivan. He complained, argued, mentioned that the particular cop was setting a bad image of peru of tourists (ie us) and eventually got away with it. However, 2 days later at the beach, Ivan was stopped by cops again. They only wanted his licence, which he had unfortunately left in the other car after the first cop incident. So he ended up having to bribe the cop, 15 soles, to overlook it.
Ahh I love peru.

Anyway, gotta go, time to go do whatever it is you do in Rio
Love Cat


Holla amigos, (kiss, fucking kiss),
After getting up at 3.30 am going to Santiago no longer seemed such a good idea. In fact by time we´d digested yet another one of LAN Chile´s ham and cheese sandwiches and poked at an undentifed piece of cake, it seemed bloody stupid. Our arrival at the airport merely confirmed our suspicions that ´fucking chile was fucking lame´. Having just lost a million dollars on the in-flight ´Who wants to be a millionaire´ game were were in no mood to gracefully accept a $US 30 entry tax on top of the departure tax from lima. Then after a long wait for our baggage we were ripped of by a mini bus company that charged us about AU$50 each to get to our hostel. Wish i´d paid more attention in maths methods. Then maybe I would have realised that 30,000 chilean pesos divided by 300 did not equal AU$10 each. Things did not improve during our first venture into the city. Equipped with the map from hell we ended up walking about 8km in the wrong direction to some random park no where near the plaza de armas. Determined to make the most of it, we checked out the national museum we´d run into accidently. Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately there were no english translations for the exhibits so we became quite creative with our interpretation of them (hence all the random photos of me standing next to stuffed animals). After a long trek back to the hostel cranky pants cat and disgruntled bo had an early night and dreamt of maps with compass bearings. Day 2 made up for all the hassles on our arrival. Turns out that the plaza was only a 10min walk in the opposite way. Looked through one of the best cathedrals we´ve seen so far. Beautiful but without the over-the top use of gold of Peru´s cathedrals. After much confusion we also managed to find a museum showing the history of the city in diarama form, which was cool in a nerdy kind of way. Despite some intense frustration with the crappy piece of shit map, I was really impressed with how beautiful the city was. Reminded me a little bit of melbourne with all those parks and fountains. Much nicer and less dangerous than lima. Definate highlight was the art gallery. Finally got to see the andy warhol exhibition which was brilliant. Also saw some cool chilean exhibitions and local artists. Was also exciting to finally make it to the hill. Am considering getting my own personal funicular when i get back to Australia. After waiting over half and hour for our mini bus to arrive the next morning and then waiting over an hour to get through customs our original our new found affection for Santiago, Chile was severely tested. The cheesy inflight movie, ´Sisterhood of the travelling pants´ restored our humour however and made us reflect on santiago in a better light. Stressful few days, but definately worth it. Just wish we´d had longer to explore the city.

Till next time,
xxxxx
Bo

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