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Published: January 20th 2011
We'd never really had jetlag before not on this scale,let me explain. We left Auckland at 4.30pm on 11th Jan. and arrived in Santiago same day and 5 hours before we left! It was a 10.5 hour flight. So we were tired anyway and settled into our "Ecohostel" Centro Santiago for a couple of hours kip in the afternoon. Maybe that was the mistake ,not sure, but to cut the story short we slept in the next day to 1pm. We were only planning to stay 3 days in this 5 million Chilean capital but decided to extend for a further two days as we needed rest but time to explore the city.
A third of the Chilean population live in Santiago so thats about 5.5 million in town and they all speak Spanish. This is where our spanish cd's that we've been listening to would really work there magic! Not really, they speak so fast and of course there's all those dialects and the latin thing. Progress is slow but we're buying tickets and getting to the right destinations.
This city is sprawled out across the plains just below the Andes. There are not many skyscrapers only in
the CBD but development is happening all around. We stayed in the El Centro just next to the CBD where also most of the historical buildings and museums were. The main river Rio Mapacho flows through the center which I'm sure gets cleaner with snow melt etc. but at the time looked like Hot Chocolate running down from the Andes!
Low humidity meant dry heat topping 33C but surprisingly no smog,maybe its there at another time of year.
We walked km through the main and minor streets just taking in our new continent. Really easy going, thats what we thought, untill a street fight appeared round the corner,everybody staring doing nothing including us .If we knew the reasons to the brawl maybe somebody would have intervened or not?! Any city can be dangerous but supposibly Santiago has a reputation, well thats all we saw of it so far!
Its amazing to always see the contrasts that architecture can have on a city,especially at Cerro San Lucia.a green oasis in the middle of towerblocks.Since1875 it has been a respite for locals and tourists alike.
I think patriotism is strong in Chile. They are very keen on flags everywhere of
which some were huge.
A highlight would be the trip on the funicular up the Cerro San Christobal to 870m where there were 2 swimming pools and churchs. The views were terrific and so was the Mote con Heusillo which is a drink made with barley,dried peaches and a syrupy tea, very refreshing and filling,like porridge in a glass. All in all is was good to recover for 5 days in such a city and get our bearings for the next 8 weeks in South America.
Off to the Lake District now, in need of some volcanoes,don't like cities too much, see you soon...
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