Finally, we're in Chile!

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Hi everyone - hope you all had a nice Easter weekend.

Our mood has lightened considerably since you last heard from us, not least because we've finally got into Chile at about the 3rd time of asking.

As expected, San Martin de los Andes was quiet, really quiet. We spent the best part of two days doing absolutely nothing until our bus to Mendoza on Friday morning. The two day stay was memorable only for the hostel, which was like either a cub camp or a prison, we couldn't make our minds up!

We left San Martin on Friday at 11am, had to change buses at a place called Neuquen on Friday evening, and arrived in Mendoza at about 7am on Saturday. Our run of bad luck continued, as we found that there was nowhere to stay in the entire or Mendoza, which was amazing as its a pretty big place. Apparently Easter weekend is a popular holiday time for Argentinians who flock to the big cities and towns.

Not to be defeated, we hopped onto another bus bound for Santiago, with a view to go back to Mendoza mid next week. The journey was a real eye opener, as we made our way up into the Andes and across the border on roads which can best be described as "pooh inducing" (sorry Mum & Dad!). Somehow the bus stayed on the road and we made our way through border control (which was long and painful) and down into Chile.

First impressions of Chile were that it is not too dissimilar to Argentina, albeit a little bit greener. After about an hour and a half we entered the outskirts of Santiago and could tell we were back in a big city due to the smog enveloping the buildings ahead.

Santiago, like Buenos Aires, is fairly European in its design, but seems a little more dirty than BA and is on a smaller scale (Chilean people are small, which perhaps explains why all the buildings are too). The other big difference is the currency - although both countries use the Peso, Chilean Pesos are in much higher denominations, so on withdrawing 100 pounds we ended up with a little over 100,000 pesos!!

We got to the hostel at about 5pm and it's nice and central and a little more sociable than the places we've been to in our mission through Patagonia. After realising that Chile were playing Uruguay in a World Cup Qualifier that evening, we went off in search of tickets in what we thought would be a fruitless search.

Not only did we get tickets, but they were cheap (about 20 quid) and in a really good part of the ground. The game started at 10pm, and walking to the ground half an hour before kick off we were amazed at how empty the streets were. We thought the game was going to be empty, but it seems that they just like to be early in Chile, as we walked into the ground to find it pretty much full to the brim. The ground is the same one which hosted the 1962 World Cup Final, making that 3 World Cup Final stadiums we've been to since we've ben away.

I'm not sure if the atmosphere was better or worse than the games we've seen in Argentina and Brazil, but it was certainly different. Thousands of fans, united in their chants (there were only about 1000 Uruguayan fans) and desperate to see their team win is an awesome thing to be in the midst of. The game was pretty exciting, with both teams attacking from the off and two pretty suspect defences. Uruguay scored after about 5 minutes and the whole ground went quiet, and had loads more chances to extend their lead before half time (interesting point for those who follow footy - Man U reject Diego Forlan was by far the best player on the field!!). After the break Chile equalized and both teams threw everything at each other looking for the winner. The final score of 1-1 was probably fair and we left to see what Santiago's nightlife had to offer.

Quite a lot as it happens. We went to a bar for a few drinks first and were served quite possibly the biggest shot of vodka we'd ever seen, which set us on our way nicely. We then hopped into a cab into another district and spent the rest of the night in a disco dancing to all sorts of music and ensuring today (Sunday) would be a write off. We finally got home at about 6am confident that we were going to enjoy Santiago, and pleased that things had turned out okay in the end.

Bye for now, we're off to nurse hangovers.

AC

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