Hotel Rugendas Santiago

Hola, <br><br>We arrived in the capital of Chile following a seven hour bus journey from La Serena, we felt all refreshed and ready to explore Santiago... the roads in Chile are great, even better than the UK, and the journey time just flew by.<br><br>Our hotel was in the commercial district of Santiago along Avenida Miraflores, which was great for a quick trip to do some shopping... Kate loved this!!! After a quick explore of the ...

... can tell you more!:<br><br>http://en.wikipedia.org/w iki/Cerro_Santa_Luc%C3%ADa<br><br>The views are fab and the fountains, steps etc here are so pretty. This also seems to be the place to make out if you're a teenager from Santiago!!<br><br>The Plaza de Armas is a really lovely square that has men playing chess there and also saw the presidential palace. Checked out Santa Lucia markets too ...

I arrived last Sunday and spent less than 24<br>hrs in Santiago, but a busy less than 24 hrs it was! On arrival, i went<br>straight to Claudia´s house for an asado lunch and to sleep that night.<br>For the record, Claudia is a girl i met by my hostel bar pool in<br>Uruguay- neither her for her friend Caro (Carolina- also from Uruguay)<br>can speak a word of English, but somehow we hit it off- which is no<br>doubt a credit to Martha´s teaching at the ANU for 2 years ...

... We arrived in Mendoza in time for the Champions League Final, we decided to avoid the Irish pub and found a Argentine cafe bar where they all supported Messi and so Barca. The passions were running high and it was great fun to watch. We did a lot of walking around the city, the plazas and the parks it was really pretty. Didn't get to do a wine tour but we did sample the regions speciality the Malbec - all good! Back on the night bus again this time ...

... Coupled with earlier wine intake that day, we wobbled our way back to the hostal that night! The wine tour was pleasant enough that day; we wanted to be "armchair" as much as possible during or time here, to maximise recovery for Angela´s leg. The vineyard belonged to the "Concha Y Toro" brand, Chile´s biggest. We managed to get some good samples of some very expensive wine sneaked into our sampler order. On the way back from the vineyard, we got ...

... of the city. The smog here is terribleeee because the mountains around it trap in the pollution, it puts los angeles to shame. most the time u cannot even see the mountains around just gray over the whole city. today i went to a big park with a view of the whole city on top of a big hill. tomorow i have now just decided because i bought a bus ticket that i will be going direct to buenos aires from here. i was gonna stop in a ...

... a bit in there as there wasn´t enough to fill the capacity for a week night game. However, the ones that were there definitely tried to make up for it and made so much noise constantly through the game, banging drums and singing - the atmosphere was great. Damo and Danny also loved the sexy cheerleaders that popped up at intervals around the edge of the pitch, along with some giant roosters - the Flamingo mascot. Some of the fans were crazy, dressed in ...

Today we dragged ourselves out of bed and took a small walk around the city. First place we came to was a Palace called "Palacio de la Moneda". It's a really grand place with all the Chile flags waving about outside. We had a walk up to the entrance and asked a guard - in Spanish - if we could get a photo with him. He said it was OK, but I was a little bit weary standing next to him with his big weapon!!! (Leave it, don't lower yourselves!!) We then went past a ...

... my way to La Chascona, another of Pablo Neruda's houses. I got a little turned around and asked an older local guy for directions and was told "It's a far walk from here!" I responded that it didn't matter, because I had lots of water! Plus, I started wearing suntan lotion, thus reducing the likelihood of getting slow-roasted by the sun. It was now close to 5 PM, and I hadn't had a chance to eat lunch yet - with the sun beating down on me, I ...

... which looked really cool. <br><br> <br><br>By the time the fireworks finished at about 12:30am we were both wasted, as was everyone around us, so our group of about 30 international drunks headed north again to find a club to carry on the festivities! <br><br>(It's worth ...