Chile - short and not really that sweet

All,

fountain

This is a bit late but the Peru blog will follow immediately after.

The 29th April was officially the longest day of my life and I will always be 1 day older than I should be.

My flight from Fiji to Auckland landed at 11.30am and then I had 3 hours to kill before I could check in for my flight to Santiago. The flight from Auckland to Santiago left at 5.30pm but I arrived in Santiago at midday on the same day so after travelling for 11 hours, I`d gone back in time by 5 hours which was all very bizarre.

My 1st impression of Santiago was not a good one as the taxi man ripped me off as although he charged me round about the right price for the taxi journey, he told me the wrong exchange rate for pounds to peso`s (something which I know now that I should have looked up before hand but it didn`t occur to me until I got to santiago to draw out money from the cash point and realised that I had no idea how much money to get or what it would be worth) so I ended up giving him 5 pound tip which I was very annoyed about when I found out the real exchange rate.

monestery

The hotel I stayed in was basic but had amazing tv which was good as after an initial afternoon moseying around the city, I was in massive shock at the fact that no-one at all (and I mean no-one) spoke English. I decided (after a little cry and a few minutes of feeling very sorry for myself and lonely) that I should get some food from the supermarket - minimal Spanish needed - and start to learn some basic phrases which I did whilst watching the OC, CSI and other american tv shows.

The next day, I ventured out to do some sight seeing and went up a big hill in the centre of the city to look round an old monestary and then walked to the other side of the city to go up the furnicular and see the views from the top of the large mountain in the city. The view was ok but not great as the city smog (which Santiago is famous for) was covering most of the supposedly stunning view. I did have 3 conversations in Spanish though and felt much better about the fact that I could get by and at least buy a cup of tea (with no milk as they don`t have it in tea - bleeuugh) plus a cheese pasty and an orange! 

outdoor pool - would you swim in this?

I attempted to go out that night to find a nice place to eat but got a bit scared as the city looked pretty scary at night on my own so I made so with supermarket food and america tv again (I was actually quite glad of the chill out time and normality that watching a bit of tv gave me as I`ve not seen any for ages).

My flight from Santiago to Lima in Peru was at 6.30 the next morning and I was not sad to leave Chile in the slightest.

view from the plane 2

view from the plane!!

view of santiago complete with smog

virgin mary statue