Conde De Ansurez Santiago

... We also managed to interrupt two church services (no one seemed to mind) and climbed a beautiful hill which afforded even better views of the surrounding beige skyscrapers. <br><br>The Grand Hyatt here in Santiago is certainly a change from the Park Hyatt, frequented mainly by business travelers and tourist en route to elsewhere. Nevertheless it's great to stay somewhere new and its apparently the best hotel in the city. Our room, and the three-storey club lounge (where we ...

... sense, they wait on the corner, look for traffic, cross to the middle and stop and then look the other way for traffic, and then cross. it is crazy! there are dogs everywhere but they dont seem to be homeless, they are all well fed, but they just hang out on the streets<br><br>We had a good pizza and beer at a restaurant for dinner for a bit less then $8 each. we love this city already!!!<br><br>if my typing is a bit off, the keyboards are a bit different here.<br><br><hr>

... has been a lot. Over 15,000k by road, the same by plane, a few thousand km's by foot, 1000 or so on motorbike the most significant have always been crossing the Andeas or cordillera (in spanish) in whatever country. The pinacle bus trip has to be driving over the cordillera from Mendoza to Santiago. Passing the formidable Cerro Aconcagua (6962m) (the tallest of any moutain outside of the Himalayers), riding down the ...

... light on by mistake, pressing the cabin crew instead of switching the light off, then asking me to sort her controls out for the telly as "I sink I press something wrong". Flight over the time zones meant that we set off Thursday morning and landed Thursday morning which felt like groundhog day. Oh well at least I know how the day ends already ;-) Got to Chile at 11:45 am and then by the time I got through customs etc it wasbout 12:30pm ...

... away to the rhythm of other bodily functions. Chad reserved the double room before he'd even had his coffee!! Santiago was a great city. We hiked to the top of Cerro San Cristobol where we picnicked and enjoyed incredible views of the city, backed by the enormous and impressive Andes mountain range. We rewarded ourselves at the bottom with a couple of strong Pisco Sours, the national drink here, at a sidewalk café. We shared a ...

... ascending and descending cars. It was a little scary, especially standing in the front coming down and as we passed the other car. It was very pretty up on top, with views of the city filling every inch of land until it stops suddenly at the massive Andes Mountains. We were dropped off at the airport around 6:00PM where we waited for our flight.

... to Arica in Chile and then by another daylong bus ride - to San Pedro de Atacama. The scheme blew up promptly after I learned that Bolivians, apparently as a punishment, started to require all Yanks to go through a painful visa process which besides all included presenting an evidence of yellow fever vaccination translated to Spanish. That struck off the Atacama plan. Easter Island stayed however, the rest was a rough ...

... virtues of the great Concha Y Toro brand. It felt like a bit of propaganda, to me - but of course, they do produce good wines, so a lot of what they said was true. It just felt a bit over the top. After, we stopped for lunch at La Vaquitea Echa - a very touristy-looking place that at first glance, didn´t appear very promising. The bread was terribly dry, and was served with the ubiquitous pebre, only their version looked and tasted ...

Today we took the bus to Santiago. It was an absolutely gorgeous drive in the mountains (with eternal snow at the top), you could see loads of horses on the way (paradis pour Clem , Van et Dom). The border crossing was in the mountains, in the middle of nowhere. We finally arrived in Santiago, looks pretty nice, but we start to feel to much of the traveller ...

Like most of the world this morning, we were both extremely hungover. <br><br>I felt pretty rough, but it was immediately obvious that Katie was feeling much worse than I was, she looked absolutely bloody awful! <br><br>After looking after her for a little bit I looked at my watch, to see that it was only 9am. <br><br>I didn't fancy my chances of getting back to sleep because it was very light in the room and also very warm &amp ...