Santiago, via Cordoba

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Beck

We needed a bit of down time after Calafate so we chilled out and decided to head back to Buenos Aires to continue North as Ruta 40 is impassable after April. Finally having an internet connection we discovered that Oasis were playing in Santiago in 3 days..now I really wanted to go to Santiago but its a killer journey and we had planned to go to Cordoba..so we decided sod it, lets do all of it and see if we can get there and get tickets.

We booked a journey to Cordoba and endured 12 hours on a bus next to the toilet that stopped everywhere, and the toilet and the coffee machine alternatly sloshed Jim with wee and coffee. Anticipating a hot shower and an ealry night we checked into our hostel in Cordoba. The staff at Hostel Centro were either on glue or possibly wanted my kidney, I dont know which but they were dead scary..the double room we booked was a 5 bed dorm with broken beds.Jim pointed out the blood stains on the floor and I jumped back and cracked my head on the bunk beds and sobbed. It was a low point.

We headed out onto the streets of Cordoba and everywhere was booked solid so we had to go back to hostel bloodstain and then we saw that one of the lockers in our room was padlocked shut. Comedy Jim suggested it might contain a head. The door didnt lock and Jim of course fell asleep in 5 minutes while I stared at the locker until 6am at which point i fell asleep until Jim woke me at 8am.

We had all day until our bus across the andes to Santiago. A four hour lunch with wine restored my spirirts slightly, including an excellent picada with some good cheese. We wandered to the bus station to pick up the crucero del norte connection and began another epic journey, this one slightly better than the last. The bus attendant greeted Jim with crys of "David Beckham!"and Victoria, I reminded him, but he looked at me and shook his head. He then shouted David Beckham everytime he passed us which ceased to be funny at 2am, for us and everyone else. We got a dinner though which was off the scale on the effort to taste ratio that I use for bus dinners here. It included

5 breadsticks
A bread roll in a little dress made out of a napkin
A cocktail stick with a glace cherry, olive and pineapple cube on it
A slice of cheese
A slice of ham
A sort of savoury arctic roll filled with diced carott, egg, cheese, meat and olives. This managed to be the both the blandest and yet the most disgusting thing I have ever tried.
A big jam tart
A lasagne.

After staring at ot and willing it to go away I ate the jam tart and the bread roll and then hid the arctic roll under the napkin dress . Starving hungry and filthy we fell asleep cursing our decision to travel across an andean pass just to see Liam Gallagher say Nice One and put his tambourine on his head. We awoke to mountains and snow and a 2 hour search by Chilea border staff and then it was down hill all the way into lovely Santiago..it gets a bad press from other travellers for being boring but I like it loads. Its clean, safe and has the best national gallery and the most beautiful cathedral I have seen. We got our Oasis tickets too.

We checked into our lovely, clean, safe hostel and Jim promptly came down with a stomach bug. I had 9 hours to nurse him back to health before Oasis took to the stage so 2 bunches of grapes later we headed to the Movistar Arena for some attitude and Fun..was it worth it? of course it was. They were great and played all the classics and the new songs from Dig out your soul sounded great live..

Nice One!

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Photos

Cerro Santa Lucia
Former Convent in Santiago