A day in Santiago

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Geo: -33.4691, -70.642

We landed at 10:00 and were met at the airport by a Celebrity rep and transferred by coach to the Kennedy Hotel. We passed shanty towns running along the banks of the river. Although tired, we freshened up, then walked to the Parque Arauco shopping mall, just 3 blocks away. It is Chiles leading Mall with designer shops and outside restaurants - it had a cosmopolitan, almost European feel to it. Here we caught the Touristik hop on hop off tour bus around the city. We thought that if we used our time and sleep later, it'd be a better way of getting over the tiring journey...it turned out to be the right decision. The city wasn't architecturally beautiful but had loads of history associated with the colonies and Spanish rule. It felt really safe and was clean. Cars were new and what we'd have at home and the driving was calm and ordered. There was loads of cool street art in the back streets. It was however a one hour tour stretched out over two hours!! We went back to the Mall, had a really nice meal (pizza) in a temperature of 34.4 degrees, then walked back to the hotel for some desperately needed sleep.

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