Blogs from Santiago Region, Chile, South America - page 136

After a fantastic few days crossing the border illegally in a white water raft with a bunch of crazy but fun Irish people to legally crossing on a ferry with a group of loud, annoying Israelis, I have arrived in Santiago. After a brief game of "Where is Emma´s Passport?" we quickly established that it must still be on a plane because it is no longer in my bag. Oh dear. So much for being the organised, intrepid traveller (that thank goodness I never claimed to be). My passport is now cancelled and I am to report to the consulate in Santiago on Monday for what I hope will be a speedy reissue as I need to fly to NZ that night. Hmmmm.... Neither Elizabeth or I are panicking at this stage but Eliz is preparing ... read more

The primary goal this morning was to make it to the long distance bus station and scope out ticket prices and availability for our onward travel to Valparaiso next week. We hopped on the great value and very efficient metro (subway), climbed a couple of steps at the station exit and hey-presto, we were there. In my broken Spanish I managed to find out that buses run every 20 minutes to Valparaiso - something that came as a positive surprise. We're used to there only being a couple of buses per day for our chosen destination so this was a welcome change. It also meant we didn't have to buy our tickets today so we headed back to the metro station and made our way across town to check out the funicular railway, one of Santiago's ... read more

Today I decided to up to Barrio Bellavista (wherewe were the night before) and to the Parque Metropolitano. Being quite late (having spent much of the morning catching up with writing this travelblog) I decided to have lunch. Most of the places down Constitution (Main bar and cafe street) were very expensive, but managed to find a nice little well priced place, and again ate incredibly well (chicken in mushroom sauce with chips.) Id move here just for the food. I entered the Parque and took atram up to Cerro San Cristohal (A tall peak at 869m) and took in the view. Its from up here that you realise how modern Santigo is and how fast its moving (lots of cranes building new appartments and buildings) There is even a building which looks just like the ... read more

We honestly had no idea what to expect of Chile or its capital city, Santiago, when we arrrived other than having been warned by numerous people to be extra vigilant with our stuff. Leaving the hostel armed with only the bare minimum, we made our way into the CBD, a kind of triangular shaped bit of the city centre flanked by the river on one side and the metro lines on the other two. Our first impressions of the city were far from what we had been led to believe. The weather was superb with a gloriously hot sun beating down and warming us in places that hadn't felt warm since we left Asia. All around us was a melange of new and old architecture fighting for supremacy on the narrow backstreets and on every side ... read more

Hola amigos y amigas! It's hard to believe that just this morning we were still in New Zealand, still amongst a culture and language that we know and understand. So where are we now? In South America, that's where - and no-one here speaks English. Crikey! Our day began at the ungodly hour of 4.15am in time for our shuttle to the airport. Our flight was at 7am and by 8.30am, we were in Auckland for the second time. Despite having over 9 hours to kill before our connecting flight, we didn't bother heading out into the city and instead explored the airport's facilities for a while before finding a corner to call home for the afternoon. Our flight to Santiago left on time at 5.25pm and I can't complain about the quality of the Lan ... read more