Santiago.

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Ola,

Still more or less the extent of my Spanish but I guess it doesn't matter anymore as I have now arrived in Rio for the final leg of my trip!

First thing I think I will talk about this time is the setting of Santiago. It is absolutely stunning. There are mountains (both snow capped and not) surrounding the entire city and they are the first thing you really see when coming in to land at the airport. The great thing about them aswell is that because Santiago doesn´t have a huge amount of skyscrapers, they are more or less in sight no matter where you are in Santiago and there are 2 hills where you get an amazing view of them from.

The hostel I stayed in in Santiago wasn´t as nice as the one in Buenos Aires, but would still say it was worth staying it and I very much enjoyed it. It was located in a good part of town in an old-style building (looking a little like a castle - with crenelations!) The rooms were incredibly spacious which was definitely a bonus (certainly compared to where I am now in Rio). There weren´t as many people around as in B.A. but they were certainly interesting - met a 54 year old who had been in England for about 4 months in the past 12 years after retiring at 42!

When I arrived the weather was fairly poor and there were protests going on literally around the block from where I was staying - riot police absolutely everywhere and apparently they use the water cannon in Santiago. Luckily the protests were only really for the 1 day and the weather improved as the week went on (although it was still freezing - I didn´t really pack for 5 degrees!)

Touristy things, again, are fairly standard so I won´t mention them apart from the 2 hills, San Christobel and Santa Lucia which offered stunning views of the city. As there wasn´t too much to do in Santiago (main attraction being museums, but I managed to do more or less everything in 5 days), I went on a day trip to the coast.

Valparaiso and Vina del Mar are 2 towns on the coast a little under 2 hours away from Santiago. Really nice (although cold) to walk around and again, a few more museums to see. In Valparaiso I did sort of manage to break into a rather grand house accidentally. I was looking for a castle and walked into what looked like a park (ok, the gate was closed but it was unlocked!) After wandering around in it for about 10 mintues I found out that the entire thing was somebody´s garden (with tennis court, swimming pool and incredible sea view). I thought I had gone unnoticed and on my way out a nice policeman decided that I wasn´t supposed to be there and kicked me out (of the actual entrance leaving me completely disoriented with no idea how to get back down the hill - or to the castle for that matter).

All-in-all I would say that Santiago was nice and definitely worth visiting, although a week was ample time! Now onto the final leg of my journey which means my next blog entry (which I will probably write from home) will actually be my very last!

Ciao for now,
Sam(uel) x

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