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Joff: We arrived in Santiago before dawn following a 13 hour flight which involved a stop in Lima to pick up a dog on the way. The flight was pretty good and we had tons of space. Although contary to EU airline law it would seem that in South America you are allowed to have a dog in the cabin for the flight, sat on your lap, which we both found most amusing!
Having cleared customs far more easily than in the US, in spite of the aforementioned dog having relieved itself in the queue... we decided that we would probably need to kill some time so had a coffee at the airport and realised that we literally speak no Spanish, having been harangued by nearly every taxi driver in the terminal and yet still not managed to get as far as talking about prices. Finally we managed to find a driver who understood our rudemantary Spanish and could interpret our hand signals and although a little unsure about how much we had actually agreed for the fare we left for town with Manuel (not from Barcelona)! You can´t write this stuff! It would seem that like his counterparts in
SE Asia Manuel had little fear of death by some kind of automotive accident as we flew through the morning traffic to our destination.
Having arrived at the hostel (note the use of the word hostel, "Flashpacking" was over, it was definitely back to "Backpacking"), it dawned on us that it was only 7am so we headed bags and all for a coffee and croissant at a local cafe. Having just about regained our wits we headed to the Eco hostel to check-in, the Eco Hostel was ideally placed on Calle Generale Jofre - it seemed like it was meant to be. Fortunately, unlike the last place we visited Brian, the host welcomed us and let us straight into our room where we promptly crashed out.
Having caught a few hours sleep we ventured out to take a look at the sights of the city. The first thing which struck us was the backdrop of the Andes with a vast array of towerblocks and classic buildings in the foreground. We decided to walk up the Cerro Santa Lucia, so that we could get a better view. The architecture was amazing and the city has a real european feel,
similar to Spain but with the dog $hit of Paris! Having done the hike and taken in the great views, we thought we would go and grab a bite to eat before doing the rest of the sights. We found a lovely cafe and sat down for Empandadas and coffee which on initial engagements seemed like the only thing we´d be eating until we learnt some Spanish. That said they were lovely so that may not be too much of an issue!
Having eaten we headed on and walked round Plaza de Armas and Plaza de la Constitucion before returning to the hostel just after dark. After a quick wash and change we decided to head out to Avenue Belavista as this had been recommended as a good place to eat and drink. We landed in a bar and kicked things off with a local beer. The atmosphere was great as Chile were playing Paraguy on the TV so everyone was out. In spite of being a 0-0 draw the buzz continued and we had a couple more beers before moving on to find a restaurant. We had steak and chicken and a bottle of Carmenere which was delicious.
Having finished we decided to go for 1 more beer and then head home. In fact we ended up having several beers and going to a club. Nothing like in at the deep end on your first night. The buzz in the club was amazing and the way in which people danced and the speed at which they threw each other about was staggering. In spite of drinking copious amounts of booze their coordination never seemed to wain. I think we must be out of practice.
Very quickly we got "talking" to Alehandro who was a local (in fact the chief of police´s son). In spite of none of us speaking each other´s language we seemed to communicate. That was until he went dancing and on his return I suggested that it would be good to learn how to speak Spanish and dance the way he did. Queue. You need to do with a Woman! Repeated, until I reminded him that I was infact hetrosexual and there with my wife. Having overcome this, a bizarre strip show then came on the stage and the local bobbies popped in for a quick look. Obviously checking that nothing untoward was happening!
Having danced, drank and tried to communicate a bit more the lights came on and we decieded we should probably be heading home. It was 5am!
As expected, we woke late at 4pm and headed straight out to get some food. Other than that we did nothing other than decide that we would head to Valparaiso the following day and so caught an early night.
Valparaiso is about 2 hours bus ride from Santiago and is located on the coast. We caught the bus without too many hitches, other than thinking we had booked returns only to find out they were singles. Anyway, I digress. On the way, the scenery was amazing there were huge mountains and valleys filled with vines. We arrived to a less than spectucualr bus station and decided to walk to the other side of town. Our initial impression was one of being particularly underwhelmed! That said the further we walked the more interesting and beautiful the city got. We decided to walk up Cerro Belavista to see some of the graffitti (graffitti is legal here and some of the murals are incredible) and a church and realised that we were being followed by
a dog who himself seemed to have been spraypainted at some point! There was a guy with his own dogs looking at us as if to say "please control your dog" it would have been good if we could have told him that it didn´t belong to us but once again our Spanish failoed us! The further we walked the more the dog followed until he found some other dogs to follow instead some 2km down the road. We found a small cafe which looked like someone´s front room and had a coffee to warm up. Having climbed about a 1000 steps we decided that at the next Cerro we would get the infamous Acensor or lifttype cable car. Built over 100 years ago and clearly had zero maintenance since this was quite an interesting experience! Having seen the main square and the main sights we headed up to Cerro Conception for some lunch at a lovely french restaurant of all things!
We have taken to eating the Menu del Dia, mainly because you get a good deal and if you can understand the Spanish you can usually get something quite nice to eat. The guy came over and
read off the menu in French and Spanish, thankfully we were able to understand the french and were thus able to order. The alarm bells had been ringing for a few days now, we had a fantastic opportunity here, we needed to get ourselves some Spanish lessons.
After a nice lunch of Beuf Bourginon, french onion soup, Moules and a delicious chocolate brownie desert we headed back to get the bus. We had been invited to a birthday party at the Eco Hostel that evening so we wanted to get back for that.
We overcame the challenge of the tickets and arrived in Santiago in time to get our washing and do some shopping as it was one of the girls in the hostel´s birthday that night and we were having a BBQ. We got ourselves sorted and then joined the BBQ. Initially things were quite awkward but as the drink stated to flow and the BBQ heated up the night kicked off.
Having decided that we would take it easy we were surprised to find ourselves watching the locals sing and play the guitar in the early hours of the morning in sub zero temperatures. Once
again we retired pretty late and woke correspondingly. We had decided to head to Mendoza the following day so we sorted out our tickets and booked accommodation for the next leg. We hit the hay early as we needed to be up a 6am to get the bus.... Santiago and Chile had been great although we just dipped our toe´s in the country I think we will certainly be back! It would have been nice to have seen more of the South of Chile but due to the recent volcano erruption that wasn´t going to be possible. Next stop Malbec and Steak capital! Argentina!
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