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Published: February 10th 2009
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We arrived in Santiago (Chile´s capital) with little expectation. People who we had met along the way had all indicated that there wasnt a huge amout to see or do. That the city was dirty and polluted and that it was a convenient stopping off point enroute North or South. Personally I (Gordon) have disagree and in a lot of ways prefered it to BA......not needing to avoid setpping in dog poo is a really good start!
Arriving early in the afternoon from Quintero we dumped our gear in the hostel and headed out for a a walk around and bite to eat. The staple diet of Empandas (not a patch on the ones we had made in Quintero!). The walk was very nice. We wandered down to town. It was very quiet on account of it being Sunday and in the middle of siesta....... we havent quite gotten accustomed to siestas yet......surprising because you really would have thought that we would have......I mean who wouldnt enjoy an afternoon nap! We wandered past the Presidential Palace, a very impressive building and down to Parque Santa Lucia. To get into the park you have to sign in at security, quite wierd....obviously
the concept of common land hasnt quite extended across the world to Chile!
The park itself is pretty spectacular. It´s on a small area of land and spreads upwards rather than outwards. Climbing to the final lookout is worthwhile as it offers really good views of the city. The park itself changes from grassy areas where people picnic to stone battelments built into the rock and even a fancy fountain of Neptune. After the park we walked around for a bit more and headed back to the hostel.
On the second day we only really had a about 6 hours given our penchant for sleeping in. Eamo and Gordon plumped for the lazy (but expensive) option of the siteseeing bus! Ann reluctantly agreed and to be fair (per Gordon) we probably should have listened to her (per Ann... but of course!) because we really didn´t get to see what we wanted to see since the bus made stops all the way out to the edge of town (Westfield like shopping mall), a Rodeo Drive like Boutique stip and of course stop 9.......the Santiago Sheraton! We did however manage a pretty good lunch and too the cable car up
the hill which has the open air chuch and the statue of Santa Maria. If the views from the previous day were impressive, then the views from this mountain (hill) were super impressive! Would even consider going to church!
We rushed back to the hostel to get bags and get our bus to Puerto Montt (overnight bus again) and then had a blind panic when at the allotted hour there was no bus and no one knew what the hell was going on...being told we were misinformed and the bus was at another set of stops....not finding it there....more panic...... and then relax..... nothing more to worry about than that the bus was running a little late and turned up where we were originally told it would......
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Kylie
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Wow you got good weather in Santiago
Hi Guys, sounds like you are having fun. You go great weather in Santiago. We had a lot of pollution when we were there. No view from the hill like yours. It makes it look so beautiful.