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Published: January 30th 2007
Santiago: Stray Dogs and Statues.
´La Chimba´, In the world´s top ten hostels.Sunday 21st January to Wednesday 25th January 2007.
Being early to the airport to see Marg off had allowed me to be the first to check in and snag an exit seat and on an aisle to boot. My seat was at the front of a centre section which allowed me to stretch my legs out against the wall in front, useful I thought for when the inevitable cramps set in.
The seat next to me was empty until the flight was all but full when a woman in her early sixties dressed in shorts, trainers and white socks came along. I thought she just had to be American but when we started speaking she told me she was from the South Island and wasted no time in letting me know she was the Deputy Mayor of Kaikoura where Marg and I had seen our imaginary whales. She was on her way to Rio to catch a cruise ship for a three week trip to Antartica of all places on which her daughter was head singer.
LAN Airlines were very impressive. Each seat was equipped with it´s own pull out video screen and you could select which film
Santiago: Stray Dogs and Statues.
Geppetto the puppetmaker. Buskers in Santiago don´t quite attract the same audiences as elsewhere. you´d like to watch from a list of several. You were even allowed you to compile your own personal playlist from the three hundred CD´s stored on the database or play a variety of computer games. The Mayoress chose to play Hangman and each time I glanced across and recognised one I´d spoil her fun and tell her the answer.
The first movie I watched was "Little Miss Sunshine" which I remember having seen advertised in the UK. It was an absolutely hilarious tale about a dysfuntional family and I´d seriously recommend that you watch it and that was followed by "You, Me and Dupree" and "Sideways". I didn´t manage one minutes sleep on the eleven hour flight and bizarrely landed five hours before I took off !! There is sixteen hours difference between Auckland and Santiago, the biggest I´ve ever gone through and the majority of my first day in Santiago was understandably spent in a bit of a daze.
I landed at 12:30 and by 2pm was at my hostel, ´La Chimba´, in the Bohemian Bellavista District of the City. It has two awards for being one of the world´s top ten hostels from Hostelbookers and
Hostels.com and I now know that they are fully deserved. Originally a house, it has a personal touch that not too many possess, is wonderfully chilled out and has a front garden swarming with purple bourgainvilla hanging over the high walls where the external gate remains locked at all times.
I caught the end of Arsenals late win at Man United (it´s only three hours behind the UK here) and took a walk around the nearby area where I noticed a poster for an Arch Enemy gig that very evening at the Teatro Telecom and thought I´d check them out. On my return I asked the girl on reception who looked up the theatre´s location. She pulled a face as it appeared on the screen and warned me that it is not a nice area and that she didn´t feel it´d be wise to go. Just as well I´d actually got the dates wrong as I´d forgotten I´d remained on the same day for ever and my watch calendar had moved forward.
At 9pm I settled down in the garden with a bottle of mid priced Chilean vino tinto (less than two quid) and "The Secret Life Of
Bee´s", a brilliant book that I´d got off Margy and was joined after half an hour by Vikki and Alan, a couple from Shrewsbury who were three weeks away from the end of their twelve month journey. She was beginning to get depressed already and my mind wandered to how I´d be feeling come the end of April. By 11pm the wine had gone and I was shot so I hit the sack and slept like the proverbial baby.
I´d said in my original blog that Chile was the place I was most looking forward to visiting, purely from the mystique point of view, and from just the few hours I´d spent here so far I knew I wouldn´t be disappointed. It was also nice, after a hectic two weeks travel in New Zealand to be able to lie back and do absolutely nothing if I so chose.
From noon the next day I spent five hours walking around the nearby City Centre starting with a stub of my flip flopped toe fifty yards from home. I screwed my face up for a full thirty seconds daring not to look and waiting for the pain to subside and
Santiago; Stray Dogs and Statues
The Presidential Palace, front of. when I finally looked I was relieved to see that the nail had taken the full brunt of the collision, no blood. Amongst other things I visited the local food markets with not a Gringo (tourist) in sight, the Presidencial Palace, the huge Cathedral, one of the biggest and best I´ve seen and the wonderful Cerro Santa Lucia, a park situated on a huge rock in the City centre which gives superb panoramic views of the City but which also resembles a vertical Hampton Court, myriads of steep stone steps leading to nothing but dead end lookout points. Santaigo reminds me very much of Madrid in many ways, is full of amazing buildings, statues and stray dogs, none of which appear to be the slightest bit interested in giving any passing humans grief of any kind and I now spend more time talking to dogs than I do trees. I returned to the hostel at 5pm shattered but content.
I was joined in the garden by Elizah, a 22 going on 30 year old Bostonian who now lives in Chile and works at The Hostel and asked her for recommendations of what to do and see. I´d originally booked
Santiago; Stray Dogs and Statues
They´re changing gaurd at Buckingham Palace. at La Chimba for seven nights with the intention of taking a week long crash course in Spanish but knew that with my memory that that would be a lost cause so on checking in changed to four. Being in Chile and the associated language problems has hit me harder here than anywhere else, only a small percentage of the locals speak any English and as my Spanish is almost non existant por favor hand gestures have quite often had to be the order of the day. The owner, an American hippy called Ian also owned a beach house three hours away and I considered moving to there at the weekend for a couple of nights. Elizah recommended Pichilemu, a couple of hours away on the coast or even a visit to the ranch where she worked weekends. Decisions decisions.
Later that evening I was sat in the garden chatting to two Brazillian girls who were leaving the next day when I was called in for a phone call. "Who the hell knows I´m here? I thought". It was Elizah inviting me round for a beer. It was 12.30am, but nice to feel as though someone thought your company
was worthwhile so off I went. She lived around the corner in a room in a lovely house populated by a mattress, a computer and not much else and we chatted until 4am.
Such a late night saw me staying in my pit until almost eleven. It was really hot and I set off to investigate the rest of the City I had not explored the previous day having decided not to refer to my map unless absolutely necessary. I came across another oasis of green amongst the concrete, entered at the gates and took little time discovering it was an alternative entrance to the same park visited yesterday, Cerro Santa Lucia. My plan was to go straight through to the other side but it wasn't long before I was snared in the same trap as the day before, descending flights of up to a hundred slippery stone steps only to come across yet another lookout point. I finally managed to escape after 45 frustrating minutes.
After dinner, again cooked in the hostel I decided I needed a bit of rock. Elizah had recommended a club only 2 blocks away and when her shift ended at midnight she
Santiago; Stray Dogs and Statues
Cerro Santa Lucia, the Hampton Court of Santiago. showed me the way. It was just a door in the wall, no flashing neon lights or grizzly doormen looking you up and down disapprovingly so I entered. The guy inside told me there was a cover charge of 1000 Pesos, a quid to me and you, I think half expecting me to turn my nose up and leave but I paid and entered. There were five guys sitting around the bar, two of which were the bar tenders and not another single soul. "Bloody hell Elizah, where've you sent me here?" I thought . The guys were playing some kind of dice game and rather than sit in the corner like a detenion serving schoolboy I decided to pull up a stool and observe from close quarters. I asked for a beer and the deadpan barman asked "large or small?". "grande por favor" I replied, my Spanish coming on heaps. He bent into the fridge and pulled out the largest bottle of Heineken you ever did see. I needed two hands to lift it to my lips.
The DJ had by now left the dice game and was sifting through his discs so I went up and gesticulated
to have a look at them. He spoke a little English but we chatted as best we could and he proudly told me he was a drummer in a band and showed me their releases. They were on proper labels so I said "stick one on". They were really rather good with a girl singer and probably, for all I know, one of Chile's hottest acts. I returned to my stool and within half an hour the steady stream of people through the door had turned the place into a heaving mass of people. It was packed.
Although not a rock club as Elizah had promised the place was rocking. I got talking to a girl at the bar who was there with a couple of male friends and she asked me to dance. All South Americans, from what I gather, love to boogie but I wasn't sure if I was ready to strut my stuff having not danced since leaving the UK. I felt as though I'd need a couple of hours practice in the privacy of my room first to get my moves gelling but the large beers told me to accept, it does refresh the parts
Santiago; Stray Dogs and Statues
It gave good views but little means of escape. others beers can´t after all. Flip flops are probably not the best thing to wear on a crowded dancefloor, avoiding excited feet jumping up and down is enough to contend with without the added hazard of them sticking to the beer stained floor. One minute I was swaying almost in time to the beat (Heineken isn´t that good it can turn me into a dancer) and next second I'd find myself standing barefoot in a pool of beer. I flopped into bed just before 5am.
Not having woken until after midday I had a liesurely afternoon taking the tram up to the nearby Cerro Santa Cristabell, another huge hill three times the size of Santa Lucia with a zoo, swimming pools, an aviary, a huge statue at the top of the Virgin Mary and even better views of the City.
By now I was beginning to feel totally at home at 'La Chimba'. I'd booked an extra night earlier in the day with plans of moving to the beach house at the weekend before moving west. After my run, my first since New Zealand I was sitting in the garden with a few of my housemates Brad, Chris
and Aaaron from Australia who were leaving the next day and had started on the beer at 4.30, Jenny and Alli, two sisters from Essex and Will and Jamie from the UK when Elizah came out and told me there was no space at the beach house. Plans scuppered, but at 10.30pm a rep from a local tour company came equipped with a laptop to demo to anyone interested in taking his tour leaving the folowing morning. Elizah collared me and told me, as I was basically existing without direction or goal, to have a look and I soon realised just how much Chile has to offer. When I returned to the garden a party was beginning to develop.
Some of the hostellers were planning to go out to the place that I'd been the previous evening having seen my photos. I was just planning to nip to a local metal joint that Elizah had assured me would play me a bit of rock alone. At 12.30am I suddenly though 'sod it', rang the tour company and booked the last remaining place on a tour to the south for the next five days that would depart the following morning.
I was chewing over the idea of an early night but of course didn't have one. I was the only one who knew where the bar was, they all needed showing and, with the best part of a bottle of vino tinto swilling around in my belly I was easy prey for their persuasiveness. You know I love a party. Eventually there was just Jenny, Alli and me and I eventually slunk into my pit at 5am. Why do I always have to be last?
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non-member comment
This looks more like it.I'm feeling jealous again you lucky son of a...