Cristal, street dogs and football riots.

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Hello! This was our last day in Santiago, we´d had a ball. After a marathon 24 hour, 3 flight journey, we finally arrived in Santiago, very tired and more than a little smelly. We had been very organised and arranged an airport transfer to take us to our hotel, but when we got into the arrivals hall it was nowhere to be seen. There followed a very scary taxi journey to the hotel, where our taxi driver tried to find us an article in the local paper as he drove along the motorway. Quote of the day according to Graeme: Jo: Here, I´ll look for it if you want... Taxi driver: No, no, I good driver lady, don´t you worry. Eeek!! We got there in one (two?) pieces however and all was well.

Our hotel turned out to be very posh, and right in the CBD, but not that close to the good bars unfortunately. Never mind, we managed! We had 3 days in Santiago, and managed to fill them, although it doesn´t have a lot to offer tourists. We climbed a couple of wee hills in the city and admired the view (photos may appear here later!), went up a funicular railway to a statue of the Virgin Mary about the city, went to the zoo (where the Chileans were ignoring the ´do not feed the animals´signs and were throwing whole packets, yes, whole packets of peanuts at the monkeys, who were clinging to the wire fence of their enclosure with their arms outstretched, trying to cathc them. Mad!), did a wine valley tour (which included plenty of free wine :-)) and generally wandered about. And dont´forget all the eating and drinking Cristal, the local beer.

On Sunday night Chile played Colombia in a world cup qualifier - we were going to watch it in the hotel till we noticed lots of people heading in the direction of the main square, wearing football gear. We decided to follow them, and sure enough the game was being played on a big screen. There were police everywhere, and although the crowd was riotous it was OK to start with. After a while it started to feel a bit scary (well, to Jo, not to Graeme!) so we left and headed back to the hotel, to watch it on TV. It was the worst game ever, the ref sent off 2 Colombian players and 1 Chilean, and even to Jo´s untrained eye it was excessive. Anyway, the Chileans weren´t too happy when they drew 0-0, and we discovered later that a fight had started exactly where we had been standing, it had turned into a brawl, and the police had moved in with water cannons and motorbikes. How glad were we that we went back to the hotel!

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Photos

Santiago Skyline
This is in one of the parks in Santiago, with the Andes in the background.

Graeme in Santiago
This is our last day here, the sun was shining.

The Virgin Mary
She looks over the city from the top of a hill - you reach her on the funicular train. Graeme was amazed by the number of telecom masts allowed up here!

Scary buses
The buses drove at top speed, then slammed on the brakes at the last minute as they reached a red light. Just like at home really!

Concha Y Toro Vineyard
Chile makes some of the bext wine in the world, so of course we had to visit a vineyard. This included many glasses of wine as the tour progressed :-)

Comments

[chinita]

from chile with luv!
Hi! I just saw this web looking for some photos to remind me of new zealand and i found your photos and realize that you also came to chile! i would like to keep in touch with you so we can have the chance to talk about the new zealand and the chilean experience on your journey!

[Katie and Elias]

Great photos of a great adventure
We found your sea cucumber picture while we were reading a book about deep sea fish and then were captivated by your adventures, especially Easter Island, Thailand, and para gliding. I'm glad there are still so many exciting places to explore on this great earth. Cheers! From Katie (mom) and Elias (7 years old), Kingston, NY 12401