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Published: October 15th 2009
La Casa Rojer
Our Hostel - A huge converted mansionSantiago
Arrived safe and sound on the Wednesday 31st Sept way warmer than expected it must have been about 20 degrees yyyeeahhhhaaaa.
It is really cool having the snow-capped Andes towering over the town, you can pretty much see them from everywhere, can wait to get closer. The town itself is pretty dirty and very smoggy but the hostel we are staying at, La Casa Rojer is great.( http://www.lacasaroja.cl/ ) Really big and clean - huge rooms, large common areas and awesome outside garden and pool area with bar. Hola Chile!
After getting cleaned up we ventured out for a walk around town, made our way to the two markets, Central Market (meat etc) and La Vega (fruit and veg) pretty cool, not the gourmet stuff you get in the coolers at home, but fresh from the farms or the leftovers that haven been exported. As a city its pretty expensive, coming from our year in Vancouver its pretty much on a par cost wise except beer is cheaper which is always a bonus!
We found a lovely little bar / restaurant just down the road from our hostel and had a pitcher of the
local beer (Chilian pesos $ 2900) whilst people watching and trying to come to grips on the need for spanish.
Spent the next few days exploring the city and doing the various walks. One up to Cerro Santa Lucia, which is a small hill with an old church ruin on the top, this is apparently where all the Young people come to canoodle - really pretty little walkways. (need to register your passport at the bottom) so we did our bit and had a little cuddle at the top looking over at the Andes - just lovely.
We also did Cerra San Cristobel which is way bigger and has the statue of the virgin on top and you can pretty much see it from all around the city (the entrance to this is in Bellavista at the top end) Its quite a long walk to the top if you miss the shortcut sign but nice none the less, ha wondered why the locals kept looking at us funny when we trojaned past them as they dilly dallied only to get to the top and they were already there!! - try and find
the shortcut down as its a really pretty walk, apparently there have been a few occasions where tourists have been mugged so we armed ourselves with a big walking stick just incase but the closest we got to any danger was a small terrantula crossing our path so that was pretty cool.
Had a really good time but looking forward to getting out of the bigger cities
Leaving Santiago, Chile for Mendoza, Argentina
Bus - Turbus ( 7 hours )
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