Tuesday, we get the bus to Santiago. First we walk through the protest filled streets with riot police and soldiers ready as the students protest against university fees. We arrive in Santiago and make our way to Casa Roja, our hostel. Its a beautiful huge, old house, perfectly restored, decorative artexing, high ceilings, big rooms, shutters, g...

Well im not to sure if i´ve mentioned this or not, but I´m staying with my friends family, The catch is my friend lives in canada, She imigrated 5-6 years ago from chile, and her family and friends are still here in chile, Thats where all my great chileano hook ups are from :D They all live in a barrio (neighborhood) CAlled maipu Which in englis...

1970 - Junior year in High School.....long time ago. Selected to be a foreign exchange student. Cool. I hope I get.....I hope I get...... I got where? Santiago, Chile?? Why?? My choices were Scandanavia, Australia, pretty much anywhere that wasn't in South America. What's up with this? There were 3 of us chosen that year. Both the other 2 are Na...

Arrived in Santiago 3.5h before I left Auckland so no time lost traveling! 25C sunny. The city reminded me of Grenoble - surrounded by dry hills and snowy mountains. Lots of colorful and colonial houses and fairly modern transport. Took a bus to the city center and started walking. People are very helpful. I must have looked as lost as I felt be...

You got to love long haul flights across time zones. We set off at 5.50pm NZ, landed 5am NZ time which translates as 1pm local Chile time of the same day. Both of us being surprisingly chipper considering we got up at 7am NZ time yesterday - or is that today? We were wandering through the streets trying to find Plaza de Armas when our alarms wen...

a city where a sleep in is mandatory. Not great if you're suffering from jetlag and awake at 5.30am. apparently if americans are awake early, so must the rest of the hostel. a very neat and tidy city, it would be even better if i knew more spanish, but am trying to learn!

Ok. I promise to write about Santiago, but right now I am too tired. In a nutshell, it´s an awesome city.

This morning i went to a lookout to get some photos of the city, you go up this hill in one of those cable trams and theres a staue of Christ at the top (check the photos). The smog was intense, it went, sky smog city. You cant even see the mountains surrounding Santiago!....wonder what thats doin to my lungs..... In the evening i went to see Co...

We arrived in Santiago by plane from Ushuaia, Argentina. We decided to miss all of southern Chile, moving onward to stay close to our 6 month target. So we stayed for about a week in Barrio Brasil. This is described as being a bohemian neighborhood, but it is better described as a being a boring neighborhood. There are two streets with activitie...

While flying back to Santiago, I got a recurrence of the dodgy stomach/bowels & bloating that I had had on & off since Colombia, but it was made 100 times worse by the altitude & I felt like I was going to explode! This prompted me to go to a clinic the next day for tests, & I was put on a strict diet of rice,bread,pasta etc wit...