Day 120 - Santiago (New Year´s Eve)

  Santiago, Chile
Monday, December 31, 2007

We were up at 3am, jet-lagged, and really struggled to get back to sleep. We tossed and turned for an hour or so and then finally dropped off again.

We woke for the second time at 10am and after a moment of panic remembered that the check-out time here was 11:45am. Phew.

Our hosts had prepared a continental breakfast for us, with some Chilean cakes, but we stuck to the cereal, toast & yoghurt.

The landlady (who was such a great help yesterday when I left my bankcard in the ATM) unsurprisingly treated me today like I was more than a bit 'slow' and seemed pleasantly surprised when she realised that I could actually string a sentence together! I must have been all over the shop yesterday.

After paying our US$48 for our room, we strapped on our backpacks and walked down to the local metro station. We were moving to another hostel which wasn't far away, but we wanted to save money by using public transport rather than getting ripped off in a taxi.

We tried to work out what their system was for buying tickets, and then tried out our remedial Spanish on the poor guy in the ticket office. He seemed to understand and at least was kind enough not to laugh out loud and point at me, even if he did say the amount in English!

After I tried to give him 1/10th of the correct amount he said the number again, loudly, and I put the coins away and blushed as I brought out the notes. D'oh!

The conversion here is roughly 1 GBP = 1,000 Pesos = US$ 2, which should be easy enough.

We got a few puzzled looks on the metro train but barely had time to get uncomfortable before we got off.

We found our next hostel with no problems and it instantly seemed a friendly place; it had even won a few awards which always gives you a bit more confidence in where you're staying!

We decided to buy tickets for the hostel's New Year's Eve party, figuring that it would be a good way to meet people and get some tips on travelling in South America from our fellow backpackers.

After chucking our bags in our new (rather grotty) room and applying liberal doses of sun cream, we headed out into the blazing Chilean sun. This was more like it!

It was, in our native London parlance, 'proper hot' outside, with not a cloud in the sky.

There's quite a lot of smog in Santiago, the capital and by far the largest city in Chile, and the smog had the effect of washing-out the blue skies.

This provided a massive contrast to Auckland which had bold, azure skies, whereas Santiago's blue skies had almost a pastel shade.

We decided to do what all good travellers do when they find themselves in a foreign city, a good old Lonely Planet walking tour.

If truth be told this was actually a bit crap, but I guess it did give us a good orientation of the central area which was about a 20 min walk from our hostel.

We had to drink regularly, it was absolutely scorchio.

When we got to the central park we decided to climb the highest hill in the centre, up to the ramparts at the top which apparently offered views over the statue of Santa Lucia, and 360 degree views around the city.

The entrance to the park was quite impressive, nice stonework, water fountains and palm trees!



The views over the city were quite cool from the main area of the park, before we even started climing.



The road to the top was a winding stone path which was quite dis-jointed, so we had to walk past many park benches en route. I guess this gives people a chance to rest from the heat.

Nearly every bench seated an amorous young couple, it was a bit bizarre, but also very romantic. This part of town reminded us of Italy!

The views from the top were great, there canīt be many cities with skyscrapers and also mountains quite so close to the centre?

You might have to look closely to see the mountains behind the haze!





After leaving the park, the walking tour took us past a big indoor market...



....and then some cafes where they recommended the empanadas.

We tried their meat & cheese and mushroom versions respectively, with a couple of cold draught beers. The 2 empanadas and 2 beers came to just over 3 quid, which was also more like it!

There was a strange payment system (where you paid at a booth, not over the counter) which had us waiting to pay for about 2 minutes, and then we were off again.

We walked through various impressive squares...



... and government buildings, including the site of the coup in 1973...



...then the stock exchange building (which was dead as a dodo)...



...and finally back towards Santa Lucia, home of our hostel.

We saw an amazing armoured bus outside one building, riddled with bullets. I bet that bus could tell a few stories.



When we got back to the hostel we caught up on some emailing before our New Year's dinner started downstairs at 8pm.

They seated the 2 vegetarians together, so Katie was put next to a nice English girl who she could merrily chat away to, while I had the pleasure of a couple of German guys. How does that work?!

The girls were doing the whole "so where are you from then?" business when Katie's new friend suddenly recoiled in shock.

It turned out that her boyfriend (seated next to her) grew up in the same village as Katie, and their families knew each other!

In fact I counted Katie using the phrase "how mental" AT LEAST 20 times in the next 5 minutes!

So we chatted away to our new friends and after polishing off a bottle of very nice Sauvignon Blanc I even plucked up the guts to speak to the German guys.

They actually turned out to be surprisingly interesting, as they both raced in dragon boat teams, which is apparently extremely popular in their area of Germany, near Rostock?!

Naturally their English was better than my 'nichts gut' German, but they did seem very entertained whenever I dropped in a bit of their native tongue, so to speak...

I worked out that every time I used a German swear word one of them would slap me on the back in true bierfest stylee, so we started to get on famously! It was just a shame that I only knew two swear words ;)

After the meal, which was pretty good, we all got together outside and carried on drinking!

Most of the hostel staff were from Santiago, and they took great pleasure in introducing us to their local drinks, including something called a 'Pisco Sour'.

Why thank you dear boy, don't mind if I do! ;)

After getting pleasantly hammered we started walking into the city, to watch the fireworks.

I don't think Sydney or London have anything to worry about, but we hadnīt seen any fireworks this year so we really enjoyed them.

As we walked down the huge main road to get to the fireworks, we passed a rather bizarre Father & Son drummer group.



By this point we'd got to know plenty of our fellow hostellers and the young mainly male hostel staff were a riot, so we were soon all cavorting with glitter & streamers like a bunch of, erm, drunken travellers!



Katie was loving her glittery blue wig!



Here's Katie with her fellow Lymm native Matt and his girlfriend Rebecca, of course they were all stone cold sober when this was taken!



Before we knew it a huge cannon went off somewhere to mark 12 midnight, followed by explosions of a less impressive nature all around us as paper flew everywhere!



This signalled the start of the fireworks display, which we could hardly see through all the paper!





By now we were all best buddies, so there was a lot of love being shared around the streets of Santiago!





By now Katie & I were both trashed, but having a fantastic time!



Katie made friends with a cute little girl who was enjoying the show up on her Mum's shoulders, who I think found Katie's electric blue wig more interesting than its owner!



After a further ten minutes of drunken chaos, the fireworks were still going great guns...





The final part of the fireworks display was loads of fireworks going off around the tallest building in downtown Santiago, which looked really cool.



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!

(It's worth noting that Katie has no recollection of this photo, or has any idea who she has her arm around!)



After about a 30 minute stagger up the road we eventually found the club, which was closed. Excellent.

We tried a few other places, all of which were packed and then Katie and I decided to head back to the hostel because we were knackered and suitably merry.

We collapsed when we got back to our room, after successfully putting 2007 to bed and welcoming in 2008 in great style!

All in all Katie and I have had a fantastic year and 2007 will always be very special to us as the year of our wedding and the start of our great adventure.

We hope that the new year brings you all everything that you wish for and that it is as happy for you as 2007 has been for us.


Lots of love,


Al & Katie xx