Blogs from Santiago Region, Chile, South America - page 140

Flying - it costs a lot of money to have yourself tortured. 13 ½ hours to LA and even though we were only transitting, we had to do the full security scene. The most intriguing question on the US immigration card involved ´if you were a Nazi war criminal between 1933 and 1945 or if you are carrying any bombs, please tick the YES box. Call me a cynic but I would think any Joseph Mengel types trying to sneak through immigration with a bag full of nuclear weapons probably isn't going to fess up and tick the YES box. Pennys ankles swelled up on the plane to the point that they disappeared and didn't reappear until the first day in Santiago, the dreaded Astro Boy syndrome. Arrived Santiago. Pick the odd one out - London, ... read more

So, right now Santiago is rather Calor. Though, I have to say that last, what was it? Sunday? was menos mal than it has been for the past few days, as there was actually a breeze on that day. But for now, women are fainting outside of the Lider (the big supermarket chain here) and making it impossible to enter, apparently because of the heat. And on the crowded, airless Metro one day, my roomate almost fainted. And she´s from Arizona, so you´d think that she´d be pretty heat tolerant. But the meto does get pretty horrible during the business hours, with people squished up against the windows, like some kind of nightmare scene. You sort of sqeeze and push youre way in there when the doors open, knocking around businessmen and college students as you ... read more

After stopping in Valdivia, Chile and finding sea lions, and then, a quiet fishing pier to sip our box wine, we continued on to the capital (10 more hours in the bus). We spent 3 days in Santiago... the 30th and 31st of December, and then the 1st of January. The city rests at the foothills of the Andes range, which can be seen from the city. ¨There´s something kind of great about being smack in the middle of a metropolis and then looking up and seeing, to your surprise, the second-highest mountain range in the world just a few kilometers away.¨ -lonely planet After days of exploring castles (drinking the traditional peach syrup and wheat drinks and then, the pisco sours), we celebrated the New Year watching fireworks with bottles of champagne from the streets ... read more

Happy new year to all!! Well we have arrived in Santiago and are currently recovering from a big new years eve! After an action packed couple of days sightseeing and shopping in Sydney we left on the morning of new years eve. We flew for about 15 hours via Auckland and Bryce slept for about 8 hours of the flight. We found our hostel with easy (thank you lonely planet) and met 3 great aussies who we have spent the last day with. After conducting a bit of research, we found out that new years eve really doesn´t get started until about 1am here so we had a sleep from 6pm to 9pm and were then rearing to go. We played poker and drinking games with our new friends until about 11.50pm before deciding we should ... read more

What can I say, there's only so much you can do when you know you arrive late in the evening, in an unknown city, with an unknown language. So booked the accomodation and the shuttle ahead, only to find out that it was a general commercial bus shuttle service, who actually didn't have a clue of where we wanted to go... But somehow we managed to get to the Hostel Bellavista, in the suburb of Bellavista. All's a bit of a guessing game still, with every day a new adventure (or challenge for that matter), but the Bellavista being a good choice, with helpful people at day and nighttime. We were not expecting much about, or actually doing much in the city. Had a walk around the burb we were in, Bin enjoying her special coffee ... read more