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Published: March 18th 2012
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Santiago – Chile
Woke up this morning, only to find it was a little chilly.
(Yes, very funny). No honestly, it was, it really was a little chilly (warmed up later in the day though).
A day isn’t much to get a handle on a city, let alone a country, but fortunately, the lady who met us at the airport, Sylvia, gave us the low down.
“The centre is not verry eenteresting”, she said, “but I suppose you should go and have a look to say you have seen eet”.
We did. She was right. But at least we have seen eet, sorry, it.
“Thee best plez is San Dominicus”, she continued, “end of the Metro.There ees an old church and some of oreeginal houses of Santiago. There ees also a beeg craft market where you weel see lots of theengs like painteengs, handbags, statues, and cats. Lots of cats”.
We did. She was right. We saw lots of theengs, sorry things, like pain-tings, handbags, statues, and cats. Lots of cats.
In the journey from the airport to the hotel (about 30 minutes), Sylvia told us a lot of theengs, sorry, things
about Chile. Population 17 million and 7 million of them live in Santiago. They have lots of earthquakes.
(How many?) Well, roughly two a week, small ones. But every now and then, a beeg, sorry big one. The last big one was in Jan 2010 – 8.5 on the Richter scale. She remembers it well. Her apartment was shaking side to side so much she had to brace herself in the corner of two walls. Her sister was asleep in the next room and was thrown out of the bed. Everything was smashed. There was a lot of damage to the city, but at least the big, new earthquake proof skyscrapers didn’t fall down !! (Seems everyone was pleasantly surprised).
Chile has been a democracy for the last 20 years. She is clearly proud of it. Still lots of problems politically, but at least the people can speak out about it. Economically, Chile is going through a boom (there’s another one, global economic crisis my arse) and there is money around (still poverty though, of course, isn’t there always where there is money).
For us, it is a bit of a culture shock coming from Australia. There are
not a lot of tourists here. No one speaks English. The people can appear sometimes brusque, but I think that is simply their way, and it is our somewhat distorted perception that gives us this impression.
Anyway, it was eenteresting, sorry, interesting to walk round the city centre. The craft market was nice and chilled. A shame we didn’t get a chance to look at the Andes (except from our hotel) though I did manage to see my feeties.
The hotel is quite nice, just out of the city centre. There's an Irish pub across the road and today is St Patrick's day. Consquently, there's lots of live music going on at the moment. Tir Na Nog were on last night (Tir Na Nog!! Hang on, where are we? What year is this? Maybe it wasn't just a day we went back when we crossed the International Date Line). We dropped in later for a pint of Guinness. They don't sell Guinness. (Wait a minute, I don't remember crossing any International Booze Line!!).
Anyway, it's difficult to some it up in just a few short words. Perhaps some poetry (though it will have to be short as
we haven’t really been here long enough).
There once was a young man from Chile
Who had an incredibly long willy
It went twice round his bed
Then coiled on his head
Which I thought remarkably silly.
Would we return?
Well, it’s a bit early to say really. We’d have to come back for a bit longer before we could answer that properly.
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