Crossing the border to Chile and Santiago

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After getting off the overnight bus from Ica we were back in familiar territory, Arequipa. We stayed one night and treated ourselves to a nice meal in an Itallian restaurant which had a blind accordionist as the entertainment. We tried to thank him several times as we left but because he was blind he thought we were talking to someone else so he ignored us.

We got a bus to Tacna which is the border town on the Peruvian side of the border crossing between Peru and Chile. We stayed one night and did nothing exciting. The next day we got a bus over the border to Arica which is the border town on the Chilean side. Again we decided to stay here for one night. Arica is a duty free haven so everything was nice and cheap. Arica is also on the Pacific Coast so we saw the Ocean for the first time in months.

We spent the day walking around rather aimlessly and in the evening we decided to go out for some drinks. We went to a place called called Schoppdog which basically served hotdogs and beer. The beer was served in tall glass towers which had a tap on the bottom so you could pour the beer yourself, the middle was hollow and stuffed with ice to keep it cold. They held a lot of beer and after a couple of these and a few hotdogs we felt a little drunk. The street was very busy and we were entertained by buskers who then asked us for a few coins in return, we obliged as we were feeling generous. We were then approached by a truly bizarre homeless individual who resembled Brian Blessed. He had very few teeth, a big beard and most strangely a cat on his shoulder. It just sat there perched like a parrot. He asked us for money but we were more concerned for the cat so we offered to buy him a hotdog, but only if he shared it with his feline friend. He agreed to our terms. When the hotdog arrived he asked for it to be cut in half and then hobbled off into the night, cat on shoulder like a confused pirate. Shortly after this show of generosity we saw another homeless man who had no shoes, we contemplated giving him my shoes but thought better of it.

We had some more beers and then another interesting character came over, this time a dog. He was a very randy little thing who was persistent in his attempts to "get off" with our legs. We called him Humphrey. As the bar was closing we got talking to a Chilean couple on the table next to us, we didn't speak each others languages very well but we managed. They asked if we wanted to join them for some more drinks at the karaoke bar round the corner. Of course we did. We were the only foreigners in the place and naturally we got up and did the most ear splitting version of Always by Bon Jovi much to everyone's horror. After this we headed to a club on the outskirts of town. On the way in the taxi the thought crossed our minds that they were going to abduct us and do something terrible to us, they didn't. Unfortunately at the club they didn't like the look of us and they refused to let white Europeans in which seemed rather racist. I think we tried to convince then that we weren't European which they didn't fall for. Disappointing we decided to go and get some food with our new friends. We stopped at a shop to pick up some beers on the way and then found a Fried Chicken restaurant, by this time it was about 4.30 in the morning. Bizarrely the restaurant was full, not with drunk idiots after a quick bite after a night out but with perfectly sober groups enjoying some not so tasty chicken. Get to bed you weirdo's!

We eventually got to bed and tried to get some sleep as the next day we were getting on a 27 hour bus ride to Santiago. The next morning we felt unbelievably morose and decided the only way to make ourselves feel better would be to go to MacDonalds. It didn't work and shortly after my drink I had to run to the bathroom to be sick. Unfortunately the cubicles were full so I had no choice but to use the sink. Even more unfortunate was the fact that there was a kids party going on in the MacDonalds and the bathroom was full of small boys waiting to use the loo, I moved them out of the way and proceeded to be sick in the sink. They were horrified and quickly left the bathroom only to return a minute later with more of their friends. I can only imagine what they were saying.

"look at that silly white man"
"typical Englishman"

It felt like like a scene from Hunter S Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Our bus to Santiago was actually quite nice, it was very comfortable and they showed loads of new (pirated) films. The only problem was that we had to keep getting ourselves and our bags of the bus every time we entered a new region of Chile to have them checked, this was particularly annoying at three in the morning.

Santiago is of course the capital of Chile, it is a huge smog filled metropolis and it must rank as one of the blandest major cities in the world. The buildings are grey, the people are grey, it is very conservative and about as edgy as a spoon. We had expected a vibrant, arty city, we even stayed in the so called bohemian district but there was no evidence to suggest that it was any different to the rest of the city. Plus it was very expensive, that didn't stop us going to a delicious steak restaurant round the corner from our hostel though.

We walked through the centre of the city along the main streets a few times. Everyone was dressed in business wear and appeared to be frightfully sedated. The streets were lined with coffee shops without seats crammed with businessmen having a coffee between meetings. The whole place seemed to feel very out of date and straight laced and a little suppressed. We also seemed to be getting a lot more strange looks from people than anywhere else in South America even though we blended in much more here, we found it very unwelcoming.

The one good thing we did was climb to the top of a huge monument which had amazing views over the city and the massive mountains behind it. Aside from this we found Santiago to be a disappointing end to our South American adventure, too conservative for its own good. Perhaps if we had spent more time there we could have got under its skin, beyond its stiff facade to find its exciting underbelly...but i doubt it.

From here we flew to New Zealand ending our time in South America. One exciting thing nearly happened for us at the airport. The airline had overbooked the flight and were looking for volunteers to take the flight the following day instead. We weren't in a rush and they were offering us 1000 dollars compensation and a night in a 4 star hotel so we jumped at the chance. Unfortunately they didn't need us in the end so we hopped on our flight and waved goodbye to South America.

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