Days 55 - 57 Santiago

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We really liked Santiago from the moment we arrived until we left unfortunately only 2 days later. We would have liked to have stayed longer and seen more but packed a lot in while we could.

The drive over there from Mendoza had been billed as being one of the best journeys in South America and it did not disappoint. We had been supposed to go on a day trip up to the high Andes the day before but did not go due to bad tummys over night. In the end I am glad we didn’t as we covered much of the same ground. The high, sharp mountains, and cool blue lakes are really beautiful. It was interesting to see some small ski resorts looking totally out of place in the summer sun. We had big comfortable seats and settled in for the 6 hour drive which was only spoilt by a 3 hour delay crossing the border which seemed to be fairly unnecessary. After spending 2 hours in a queue for a visa we had to stand in line to claim our bags and be sniffed by dogs before the bags were sent through a scanner. It was a surprisingly complicated process to pass between two countries with seemingly good relations.

We stayed in the university district of Santiago and were surprised how peaceful and quiet it was and how wide and tree lined the streets were. Our friend Connie who is from Santiago had generously suggested things to do and see while we were there and we spent a day walking round the city stopping only for lunch and refreshments checking out museums, churches, government buildings, art galleries and the like. On our last day there we had a wonderful lunch in a cerviche restaurant. We had hoped to spend the afternoon at an open air swimming pool up a hill overlooking the city but unfortunately it was closed on Mondays so we did more walking and had a huge supper mainly of meat.

We had an overnight bus booked to take us further south down Chile into Pucon which didnt leave until 10.45 so were hopeful of tiring ourselves out to get some sleep before we arrived in Chiles “adventure capital”.

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