Santiago, Chile

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So for the second time of writing, as the internet connections are so s*it out here...

We arrived back in Santiago around 9pm and phoned a guy I met on the ferry trip as I knew he would be in Santiago. Good job as well as he was flying back to England the next morning, so Sarah and me went out for a few beers with him and then went to bed around 2am.

Over the next two days we tried to investigate the city, although Im not sure we got very far. I decided I would send some stuff back to the UK, and spent over an hour doing sign language and watching the bloke behind the counter go through every single item and giving some of it back to me, saying I couldnt send it. I was also told it would take 15 days to arrive in England even though they only did airmail and not surface, so who knows what flight that was on!

So after that we walked to Cerro Santa Lucia,which is a park/castle type place, where I think the city was founded. Anyway there are good views of the city from the top so up we climbed. And yes they are good but would be even better if the city wasn´t covered in a smog like film. Still that (apparently) is Santiago for you. I was following in Chalres Darwins footsteps though, as he apparently climbed up there as well and said the "views were unique"

Afterwards, we walked to San Cristobel and caught the funicular railway to the statue of the Virgin Mary, and gosh she is tall! We looked at more views of the city and then started our desent, stopping off at the lovely little chapel below the statue. I managed to leave my camera on the wall, realised about 5 minutes later, and ran like the speed of light (yer right) back to the chapel, to find it was still sitting there. How lucky was I?

The second daywe caught the tube out to what we were told was the posh bit and beautiful, only to find it not very exciting and just full of shops :-( Still we had some good food and then walked round the bottom of the parque Metropolitano (where the statue is). And that was it, the total of what we saw in Santiago.

Next stop Valparaiso... For which we had to catch an early bus, so sensibly we got drunk on Vino Tinto !

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