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Published: November 10th 2009
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My bus arrived in Santiago at 6.30pm on Thursday 8 October. I took a taxi to the hostel (in Barrio Bellavista) in the heavy rush hour traffic. The hostel had warned not to pay more than 5,000 pesos in the taxi but I was not worried when I saw that it was on the meter. However, when I arrived at the hostel the meter said 19,800 pesos. I refused to pay and said I was going to ask in the hostel. The driver then said it was a mistake and should be 9,800. I reluctantly decided to pay this hefty fare as my big backpack was still locked in his boot. I checked into my 4 bed dorm where 3 English guys (Tom, David, James) were getting ready to go out so I had a quick shower and joined them. We went to an Irish bar for a drink and I got some dinner. Then we went to the main street where everyone sits outside on plastic chairs and drinks one litre bottles of beer (generally Escudo). After a few bottles we went into the club we were sitting outside and stayed there for a couple of hours before getting back
to the hostel at 3.30am. I got up at 10am just in time for breakfast but I had a really bad headache. Tom and I spent the afternoon walking around Santiago, visiting Cerro Santa Lucia which is a cone of rock rising steeply to a height of 70 metres (which we climbed with serious hangovers in severe humidity). It contained lots of little gardens and waterfalls and there was a fortress at the top from where we had great views of the city. After walking around the city for a while longer, we decided to go for a crepe lunch near to our hostel. In the evening, Tom, David, James and I went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner before buying some beers and returning to the hostel. Tom and I played pool while the others played cards and drinking games (we could still be playing pool now and Tom would not have won a frame yet). We all went out around midnight and sat on the main street drinking for a while. Then we went to a club called Amnesia but after half an hour Tom and I decided to leave and go to another bar called Concepcion. We
left there around 4am and went back to the hostel. On Saturday morning, we watched some of the Russia Vs Germany game before switching to watch England lose to Ukraine. In the afternoon I walked around Santiago some more and got some lunch. Then I met Tom and David at their new hostel and we went to a sports bar to watch Colombia Vs Chile. The atmosphere in the bar was unique with lots of big flags being waved, numerous horns and lots of chanting. In an exciting game, Chile won 4-2 and that sealed their qualification for the 2010 World Cup Finals. Everyone immediately left the bar so we grabbed our big bottle of beer and followed the crowd down the main street. Chilean flags and shirts were everywhere and all the cars were beeping their horns. Within a couple of minutes we reached Plaza Italia where there were already a couple of hundred people celebrating. We passed through the riot police (who confiscated our beer) and then joined the crowd in singing and dancing. Ticker tape filled the sky as it was released from the rooftops of surrounding buildings and the small crowd soon turned into a sea
of thousands of people. The police barricades protecting the statues and flagpoles did not last long and soon the statue was swarmed with people and the flagpoles were being scaled. We had so much fun in the hour or two that we stayed but eventually we had to go for dinner. We went to a nice Italian restaurant where we must have looked slightly out of place as we were covered in hole-punched paper which was being thrown around in the celebrations. After dinner we returned to Plaza Italia where the party was still going strong (TV reports said 20,000 people were at the Plaza). We stayed a while and then returned to the hostel with some beers. At 12.30am some of us took a taxi to a club in Providencia and we stayed there until 5am. Back at the hostel we sat up until 7am before eventually going to bed. Tom and David left on Sunday morning so I spent the day riding the Metro to a couple of places and then I took the funicular up Cerro San Cristobal. It was a perfect day to enjoy the views of the city from the summit at 300 metres. In
the evening I went for dinner in a local cafe on the main street before returning to the hostel to watch a film on my iPod. I checked out on Monday morning and caught the 10am bus back to Vina del Mar.
NOTE: I will post some photos from the Plaza Italia celebrations soon (and maybe a couple of video links).
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