The Long Good Friday
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Santiago,
Chile
Friday, April 14, 2006
A new country, a new continent, a new language, an old friend.
The day before I flew to Chile Neil (The Simple Scotsman, see prvious entries) e-mailed me to say he was still in Santiago, stuck there over the easter weekend because all the busses were full with vacationing Chileanos.
After hearing Neil´s horror story taxi ride from the airport into town, getting hideously ripped off, I took the bus, it was a lot easier, and cheaper, although after the greulling 11 hour flight from NZ I can see how it is easy to just accept the first ride that gets thrown in your face, remembering my first experience of being conned in Bangkok just after my 11 hour flight, on which I also got no sleep, paying well over the odds for a taxi. My flight was not pleasant, with sleep not seeming to want anything to do with me, I resorted to watching some bad films, a rom com with a dead Reese Witherspoon, surley guaranteed to put me to sleep, nope, Dukes of Hazzard was doing a good job of boring me to slumber town, until Jessica Simpson attempted to act and the bile rapidly rising in to my throat woke me up with an acidic start. Even the normally reliably bad 2 and a half man failed to deliver me into the sandman´s arms.
In the end I had to accept my fate, 1 hours sleep on an 11 hour flight, not the best mindset to start my South American adventure, safely arriving at the hostel, it was immediately apparent I was somewhere new and different and unfamiliar. One of the richest and most stable South American countries, it was still clear I was not in the developed world any more, tripping over the uneven paving, and running across the road to avoid the recklessly driven collectivos, big yellow busses that are the arteries of Santiagos transport network, ably assisted by the Metro, which puts the London Underground to shame in terms of cleanliness, admittedly a lot smaller than the underground though, and less far reaching, not even making it to the airport was a surprise.
After a brief wander around the area surrounding the hostel, I was amused by the traffic light entertainers, performing juggling acts and dancing, or playing music to the stalled traffic at the red light. Prefereable to the windscreen cleaners found in other areas of the world. Being Good Friday, which it happened to be for 48 hours for me, and the easter weekend I did not get to experience the full chaos of a Santiago which is a mass of collectivos and people. I think this was a good thing, knowing my claustrophobia in big cities, Santiago was pleasantly calm. Apart from collectivo dodging, which is a local past time as well I learnt during my wanderings, there is no main attraction to Santiago. Fortunately I had a personal guide in Neil, who had spent 2 weeks there and knew the places to go. My first full day was spent (with a hangover, my first night in Chile involved copious amounts of vino tinto, arguments over Shit head rules, and going to bed at 5:45am, fortunately due to jetlag I was wide awake at 9am for breakfast) seeing the sights of central Santiago, including an old fort, and climbing San Cristobel hill, with it´s statue of the Virgin Mary over looking the city, similar to Rio´s depěction of her son, but a lot less impressive. The views were good though, with the Andes seemingly surrounding the sprawling urban metropolis of Santiago. Other sights my Scottish tour guide lead me to during my 3 day stint in Santiago were the Cemetary with many impressive mausoleums and tombstones, inspired by christianity and also the indigenous beliefs, the national history museum, which was located in the large Plaza de Armas, along with many a vendor, including the opportunity to have your photo taken with a stuffed llama, tempting. The Museum was very interesting, that which I understood, unfortunately most of the information was in Spanish. Having learnt a bit of spanish from a book, my reading skills are not too bad, understanding about half of what I was reading at the museum. Unfortunately having learnt from a book I cannot understand a word when it is spoken to me, even the really basic stuff that I understand sounds like "WEfeuwf iyefrgeilfg iygflwfrg" it might as well be Welsh. I was told that Chileans speak Spanish a lot faster than the rest of South America, with Argentina speaking a lot slower, and Peruvians speaking really slowly, the brummies of South America you might say.
With this knowledge and the advice I had recieved from many a South American adventurer about Argentina being generally better and cheaper than Chile I decided to cut short my time in Santiago and venture over the Andes to the oft talked about Mendoza in the heart of Argentina´s wine region. Not being paricularly impressed by the food on offer in Santiago, it seemed to mainly consist of ice cream or hot dogs, I was also looking forward to a nice big fat juicy Argentinian steak. I was also quite keen to get away from the snoregasms, and bed jumpers that had plagued my sleep during my spell in Santiago.
It is a shame that I cannot spend more time exploring the deserts in the North or the almost arctic South of Chile, but due to it´s illogical shape it would require doubling back on myself and I do not have the time for such excursions if I want to fit in everything else.
Adios Chile, it was brief, but it was fun, and I will be back one day to see you top to bottom, but not on this trip.
