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Published: July 11th 2009
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Tim Version:
* San Pedro is a nice little place with a good dose of sunlight during the day, a warm change!
* Santiago is amazing!! The layout of the city, the public spaces, its so clean and safe, its incredible! Not so lively in winter but Id love to check it out in summer...
The version loving being in a clean, safe country where everything works:
Arriving in San Pedro was brilliant. The sun was shining, there was no cold wind, and while it was still cold in the shade it was an easy town to find a sunny spot in so I finally warmed up. The change from Bolivia to Chile, amazing. Road quality is the best, there are emergency truck stops everywhere and safety is great, the border guys actually perform checks on you and your gear and it feels like a really well working country. And it is! The town is small and a little expencive even by Chilean prices, and compared to Bolivia wow, way more, but you get what you pay for. Myself, a german guy from the tour and an awesome little swedish girl grabbed a 3 bed room in
a hostel. I rested for the night mostly, trying to fix my damaged self. Warm comfortable beds, a good paint job, a nice bathroom with advancements i haven't seen in 10 months such as a hot water tap to wash your hands with as well as the hot shower, and at night there was a heater the owner brought out and the insulated house KEPT THE HEAT Brilliant! Hostel Campo Base, really nice owner too. We even got to town early enough to relax in some hammocks in the sun.
That day/night and the next day until my 7pm bus to Santiago I just rested. My stomach started healing provided I kept myself warm not shivering or tensing up from the cold and I slowly started getting the ability to eat more and more, feeling much better and energised. I thought Chilean buses would be good but still wasnt dead confident about the internal temperature control so still in damage controlmode with my body I brought everything on the bus I could think of for warmth but was overwhelmed with joy (heh and I seriously was, I was so so happy) to find it was a warm comnfortable temperature
besides the freezing outside, and there were blankets and pillows for use anyway. Warm enough that I slept the night on the bus with a blanket and a tshirt and jeans very comfortably with 2 seats to myself!
The view the next morning and all day until the night when I arrived in Santiago was much the same, the atacama desert coastal areas of dry scrub, cacti and dirt but the location, wow, is amazing!! You have the coast, ahhhh yess my beloved coast, I almost had a tear ofjoyand pressed my head up against the window when I saw I was back at the coast again!! and then on the other side the beautiful snowy mountains of the Andes, all very close to each other. Its an incredibly strange combination well worth seeing in person as it just doesn't seem right to exist. The ocean, then totally dry almost never raining desert, then straight up to some of the highest snow capped mountains in the world all within a small drive and all easily visible at the same time. Some of the oceanside villages in Chile along the way looked very beautiful too, well layed out architecturally with
lots of open space and a good happy feel to them and I'd love to revisit them and surf the coast some time in summer.
By Santiago I was ready to leave the bus and it was night but being Santiago that doesn't matter as it really is a very safe city! After walking a bit, taking the metro, and then walking more to get to my hostel, I think it felt like one of if not THE safest capital city I've ever been in. Actually yeh, I really can't think of a better one...Santiago is it.
I stayed a few days just wandering the city, checking out a few museums and cultural things but mostly just taking it easy, taking in the wide comfortable streets, numerous green parks, incredibly well planned and maintained public works from benches everywhere to sit to fountains that were always working, to skate parks, children's playgrounds, small public libraries in parks with glass windows for great views with free internet, to just, well, everything. In a few days of wandering, and when I wander it is for 6 to 8 hours at a time in random directions covering a fair chunk of
the city, I never found an area I was uncomfortable in or didn't like! By the end day of my stay my stomach had recovered fully and I could eat, keep the food in me and I started having much more energy so it was time to venture out of this beautiful city and on to Argentina to get stuck into some steak and wine! I loved Santiago, though it is very quiet in the winter, but I get to visit it again before I leave South America as I fly out of Santiago and its also a business destination for some Australian companies so Im sure Ill get to visit it in the summer when it comes much more alive on the streets and in the parks which I can't wait for.
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