Jetlag in Santiago. That's all.

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Our time in New Zealand seemed to come to an end very quickly and before we knew it, we were trying our best to prepare ourselves to leave for South America. I don’t know quite how it all happened so quickly but we had our phrase book, our Footprints guide book and our things packed, waiting for Matt’s mate Barney to pick us up from our hostel and take us to Auckland Airport. He arrived early and off we set. Unfortunately he thought there were some sort of roadworks which threw him, and we drove around aimlessly looking for signs for the airport for about 40 minutes before arriving once again where we started! So off we set again, onto the highway and this time we had no problems and were at the airport, having seen quite a lot of central Auckland, in no time at all. Thanks for missing your lunch for us Barney!

I was feeling quite apprehensive about getting to South America, perhaps because they speak varying forms of Spanish and not much English, and we speak English and very little Spanish, perhaps because I didn’t really know what to expect or maybe because of the renowned levels of petty crime, mugging and pick-pocketing . I loved it when we were in Asia and went to Singapore because it was more Westernized, and loved it when we left Asia and went to Westernized Australia and New Zealand because it was so much easier and a lot more familiar. So then to leave this behind once again and go to South America, well it was quite a scary prospect that’s for sure. I just want to point out that I loved South East Asia, probably more than Australia and New Zealand, but I just feel that Westernized countries are more like home and make me feel more calm and comforted. So South America seemed like a bit more of a challenge (just like leaving England for Thailand) and I didn’t really feel ready for it.

We had prepared ourselves only a little in New Zealand by downloading Spanish podcasts and listening to them in Bertha whilst driving, but we knew only a few phrases, like “Where is the toilet?” and “I would like potato with cheese”. I found at the airport that I could understand some of what fellow passengers were saying in Spanish, so I thought maybe my understanding was better than my speaking but I also found that when listening to the announcements at the airport, I couldn’t understand the Spanish and then I couldn’t make out what they were saying in English after that either - silly I know but this is something that I struggled with in Asia too. Cate’s understanding of people speaking English in their local accents really is this diabolical, and often resulted in her getting the wrong stick of the end ... to be honest without an ability to understand accented English I’m not really sure how she understands any of her family in Birmingham! *I’m gonna be in trouble for that when I get home.* And you deserve it.

We had a thorough review of our New Zealand trip before we boarded the plane as a guy asked us if he could interview us about what we did in New Zealand and he literally wanted to know everything; where we had been and for how long, what we had done, where we had stayed and so on. It lasted for about 40 minutes in total and then it was time for us to board our flight. It was like some New Zealand government Jedi mind trick, to make you remember all the good times that you’d had in the country before leaving, you can’t beat a bit of positive reinforcement to have everyone leaving the country and giving glowing recommendations.

Anyways, we boarded the plane to find that our seats were the middle two seats of the four across the middle of the plane, no way of stretching legs out into the aisle and having to wake a slumbering Latino every time the toilet was required ... still, at least it was only a 11 hour flight hey? But the flight was fine. Despite it being a LAN Chile flight the air hostesses spoke mercifully good English, the movies were available in English, and they served very large glasses of whisky upon request ... result. The food was very good - mashed potato to rival the one from Marks and Spencer, and I ended up watching three films before even contemplating going to sleep - probably a first for me. I have NEVER watched more than two in a row - I’m too fidgety for that, but I had no choice what with sleepy lady on my right and Matt and whisky Latino on my left. I couldn’t move and couldn’t get comfortable enough to sleep so I reckon I probably grabbed only about an hour all night. My legs were cramped and sore despite moving them around on the spot constantly and I just wanted to get up but didn’t want to disturb anyone. We hit some turbulence part way through the night which was a little unnerving but thankfully we set down safely into Santiago airport at what our bodies thought was 4am on Sunday morning but was actually mid-day on Saturday afternoon in South America. Now that threw my body into disarray totally.

Cate was quite literally useless upon our arrival in Santiago - and this is coming from a man who somehow managed to misplace his immigration documents on the plane, we were on a plane, where could they have gone?! So with a sleepy wife in tow we managed to circumvent passport control and customs without being asked anything complicated in Spanish, only to exit the airport and be assaulted (figuratively) by a host of taxi drivers vying for our business - not that we had any intention of paying the 25,000 pesos taxi fare that they were quoting when the bus/metro combo would be a far cheaper (if somewhat more taxing) option. For some obscure reason the symbol used to denote the Peso is also the dollar sign, so we did a little double take when we saw the bus fare was $1400 into town, luckily this was pesos!

After getting off the bus, our next challenge was the metro, which despite having to take two different lines to get to where we wanted to be, we managed with relative ease. The metro was fine, although there seemed to be about a million people in each carriage including quite a few extremely grumpy looking Chileans. What did we ever do to them?!

The hostel we had booked through Hostelworld, (Andes hostel) was just across the road from the metro station we ended up at, and was really nice (much better than what I’d expected.) We were put into a 6 bed dorm, (both bottom bunks, bonus) which had pretty pink and brown coloured bedding and stable, wooden beds. There was free internet, (something we were no longer accustomed to,) flushing toilets although we were back to putting toilet roll in the bin rather than flushing it and there were amazingly powerful overhead showers. Fab! The kitchen seemed a bit grubby which put me off cooking in it, but I was way too tired to eat anyway.

We dumped our stuff in the room and decided that we could probably just about manage a little walk around our new surroundings, so we headed off in search of adventure (after first stopping at the supermarket for some crisps and juice of course). So we had a little wander towards the centre of town, along the river and through a park ... before failing to find the tourist information place we’d been looking for and heading back to the hostel for a sit down ... Cate was, as I think she MAY have mentioned, rather tired. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. We sat down on one of the sofas in the reception area and Matt was on the internet while I was dozing, listening to Glee which was playing on loop on their flat screen TV. After a couple of hours of doing this (bearing in mind I HATE the feeling of dozing in front of the TV,) I finally mustered up the energy to move upstairs to the dorm and gave into the urge to go to bed, feeling that 6pm was a reasonable enough time to get into bed for the night. After sleeping on and off for about 20 hours - come on, I’d had very little sleep on the plane and had woken up with huge bags under my eyes on our last night in New Zealand so I was shattered - I finally felt a bit better and we got up, showered and headed out in search of lunch. After having to endure the worst snoring I’ve ever heard at 4am that woke up everybody in the room ... the next morning the snorer came into the room after having a shower and sat briefly on a different bed to the one he’d been sleeping in. This bed-swap meant Cate didn’t know he was the snorer in question so when he asked whether she had slept well she informed him that the snoring had kept her awake all night - go get ‘em girl! I didn’t even feel embarrassed when I realised that it was him, “What? ME?” he exclaimed. Apparently he doesn’t normally snore but it was the best night’s sleep he’d had in ages. Yeah, lucky him. In the middle of the night the guy who was sleeping below him stood up, shoved him to wake him then shot back under the bed. He needn’t have bothered as snorer was not going to be woken so the guy went off in a huff, obviously to ask reception for a bed in another room. Enduring the snoring was not an option so I turned on the light (just Matt, snorer and myself left in the room) and finally he woke up. Not impressed.

Anyway, back to it. Lunch. The lady at the hostel reception desk recommended going to a market and eating in there. The market stunk of fish just outside its entrance but inside there was a restaurant that Matt reckoned had the look of Frankie and Benny’s, but Spanish stylee of course. A member of staff caught our eye and started to talk to us, with very good English, telling us that the roof of the market had been made in Birmingham, well the Black Country. All very interesting, and anyway we were thrown a bit so we sat down for lunch there without even looking at the menu first. Big mistake. Not only was it really expensive (even though that guy had told us it was cheaper than it was when we asked “Quanto questa...,”) but the food was bad. I ordered sea bass after much deliberation (and after being put off the salmon by the waiter who told me that since the recent earthquake he could not recommend the salmon as it was not good...I’m not really sure why.) The sea bass was under cooked and was sloppy inside, the texture of raw fish. I asked him if it was cooked all the way through to which he replied “It must be” over and over. Why must it be? Because he said so? It wasn’t cooked all the way through. It was raw. Hence he took it back to have it re-grilled. *I really hope they didn’t spit in my food.* It’s not spit you’ve got to be worried about! Anyway, we paid a ridiculous amount of money for some pretty crap food and an expensive bottle of water which incidentally seemed to give us a headache despite our obvious dehydration and then were asked by the Chilean guitar playing ‘entertainment’ for a tip. Oh, not just any tip. He named his price. I said no. Cheeky bugger. Don’t mess with Cate when she’s tired!

Anyway, Cate forgot to mention that before lunch we also had a little dander around the Plaza de Armes and inside Santiago Cathedral ... she probably didn’t mention this because it’s not a great anecdote, but I like to make sure you’ve got the fully-rounded, excruciatingly detailed picture and horrifically boring picture. So there you go, we went to a Plaza and to a cathedral, and after our disappointing first foray into Chilean gastronomy we went to the supermarket to buy two bottles of drinking water before heading back to the hostel. Enjoy the story? No? I’ll hand you back to Cate. Actually the Cathedral was special - it was immaculate and incredibly beautiful inside. Definitely worth a look. What with the beautiful statues and decor and the relaxing holy music playing, I was feeling quite spiritual. As you might know, Matt is an atheist (despite my efforts to convert him) so I asked if he felt at all spiritual being in the Cathedral, thinking how could he not? We talked briefly about how to be religious you need to believe without seeing and how people only have bibles now for information on Christianity. So then in response to my question, he came out with the following statement: “You know what Chinese whispers are like.” That boy. One day he’ll believe in something I’m sure.

When we arrived back at the hostel we chilled out once again and didn’t manage to get to sleep til about 3am the next morning - very frustrating as we were in bed from about 11pm! Blooming jet lag! Well if you will sleep for 20 hours the night before darling!

Cate and Matt xx

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Comments

[great photos Cate]

Make the most of the weather Cate - it's turned cold here again brrr x