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Published: October 28th 2006
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So its time to say a sad goodbye to South America. We have had such a wonderful time here - its hard to believe we have been here 5 months - it feels both longer and shorter than that. Our final days have been spent in Santiago - the capital of Chile aka the least recommended place we have been. Whenever we spoke to anyone previously about having been here we generally got a wrinkle of the nose, a shrug of the shoulders and the statement "its just a big city". I have to say I agree. We are, however, staying in a very picturesque corner on Calle Londres and Calle Paris - its like an old quarter of Paris. Our hostel (Residencial Londres) is a grand old townhouse which is lovely. The city itself is nothing exciting or unusual - you can't see the amazing mountains in the background because the smog is too thick. Santiago also seems to have the densest population of english teachers in South America. Everyone we meet seems to be staying for a year to teach English. Its been very nice to meet some people other than travellers. I think their experiences of South America
will be very different to ours. It has been a lovely opportunity to remember some of the wonderful places we have been as well because we have been recommending things to people who are planning a month in Bolivia or Peru.
We had a wonderful farewell evening with Tim and Becky before they left for Auckland. We ended up in a rather grotty bar in Bellavista district drinking beer and at one point deciding to drink a shot each. As there wasn't much variety we ended up with vodka and boy was it big - it must have been about 3 British shots worth! Mike totally wussed out and had his with tonic. I drank mine in 2 goes and Bex did it in 3. The music was good - a bit of Smiths, a bit of Iggy Pop all pretty danceable to. Becky and I took a turn on the dance floor, in part to end the uncomfortable scene of one couple dancing badly to alot of our country's best music. I don't know if we improved the situation! At some point though it changed to hard house music which put a bit of a dampener on our
fun and games! The bar itself was pretty dead as most people were sat outside at picnic tables. Alas when we arrived none were left so we had to pay for entry into the bar itself (I say we but only the boys had to pay - it seems to be the case that girls get in free or at discount most of the time but boys have to pay). The next day involved a trip to McDonalds to help the hangover and the recollection of embarrassing incidents from the night before (most of which involved me).
After Becky and Tim left we decided to head out of town for a couple of days to Valparaiso. We had been told by some people we met near our hostel that it was amazing and that they had had problems getting somewhere to stay which meant they couldn't stay as long as they had wanted. With this in mind we were quite excited as we made the hour and a half journey there. The accomodation situation was pretty much the same when we arrived so we gave up and decided to return that evening to Santiago. Valparaiso is a town of
two sides. The hills which surround it are covered with brightly painted houses and the effect is quite pleasing. Walking around Cerro Cordillera (one of the hills) we saw some amazing art work on the walls and some very beautiful houses. The bottom of the hill on the coast, however, was pretty much a dump. We ended the day feeling quite disappointed. I am pleased we got to see such beautiful, original artwork though.
The last couple of days have been spent pottering around Santiago playing pinball (our new favourite thing - we are actually quite good!) and discovering other areas which are a bit nicer than the centre. We bumped into Steve again as we were standing talking to some other people we had met who turned out to have been in the same room as him on the boat trip from Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt. Another strange coincidence!
My overall opinion of Santiago is that its nice enough but doesn't have a patch on alot of the other places we have been. If we were to live here though for any length of time I think it would be very different. There must be a
reason all these people are here to teach right? Anyway, tonight we are off to Auckland, New Zealand ready to start a completely different part of our trip! Its a 14 hour flight which I would have balked at previously but after becoming practiced long distance bus travellers I reckon it will be a piece of cake - watch this space to find out if I'm right!
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Steve
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Santiago looks pretty amazing to me!!