Santiago is a large, extremely hot city I found out. In the days, temperatures are around the mid to late 30´s, and the only time it lessens is at five in the morning, for an hour, where you need to put your blankets on your bed, to kick them off an hour later.
My backpacker lifestyle had begun. Its very different from any other part of my trip, which has been either centered around one location, or travelling with a group using hotels. Here, you meet new people every day, of every nationality imaginable.
On my first day, I spent the day with three Irish lads, Flinton, Steve and Steve. We went walking around the city and went to a viewpoint, that had a zoo halfway up the mountain as well. It was a really nice day and it was nice to enjoy the sunshine and walk around, looking at different animals, eating ice-cream.
At one point I rolled up my jeans and walked into a fountain - it was great fun! If the locals were doing it, why not me.
That evening the Irish lads left for New Zealand. I met two Israeli lads, Guy (spelt Gui) and Mattan. Guy taught me how to write my name in Hebrew, right to left and told me some interesting things about his religion. Did you know that strict Jews aren´t allowed to mix milk and meat, as it tells you not to in the bible? Its not kosher. They have to wait three hours in between. And at a barmizva, the ceremony held when young people are 13 to celebrate the entry into the adult world, the child needs to spend time learning some passages from the bible with the Rabbi. These aren´t read aloud, there are special musical marks in the bibles that instruct you how to sing them. Once the child has sung the passages, and undergone a ceremony, the women pelt the now adult with sweets from the upper balconies where they sit. The sexes are sat seperately in synagogues: men sit on the first floor of the synagogue, and the women sit in the balconies for propriety, so noone gets distracted. Gui also told me that the British had used to rule Israel, before the Israeli´s, and when the Jews that had scattered tried to return to their motherland in boats and over land, the British had turned them away as they wanted to have more British than Israeli´s in Israel. The Israeli´s had had to sneak in at night on boats.
At times, its easy to feel ignorant when you find yourself speaking to a 22 year old that is fully fluent in two languages, knows world history and is learning a third language to boot. That has saved up money to come away by working in the army in a civilian rescue programme. Though obviously, they are too polite to look down at you at your lack of knowledge.
Yesterday, Gui and Mattan came to a vineyard with me for a tour and winetasting. We had a lovely time, although I needed to translate for them as the tour was in Spanish. We met some friendly Australians who have invited me to stay at their houses if I need a place to crash in Auz. What wonderful, open people.
Gui and Mattan wanted to sleep after the vineyard, but as I´m only in Santiago for a short time, I felt the urge to explore. I left them and walked around the Precolumbian Art musuem, which is fascinating. Its well worth a visit - there are 8" carved wooden statues and amazing stone masonry as well. And the early Chileans had the oldest known method of mummifying known on the planet - they would replace soft organs with branches, twigs and mud. There were some on display, they had shrunken and were odd to look at. The Chileans were fascinated by pregnancy, and there are lots of figurines of preganant women.
Chilean art is somewhat abstract - I´m not to keen on it, although its interesting to know what it looks like.
Today, the 31st December, is my last day in South America. I´vé checked out of my hostel and eaten lunch at an expensive, but divine, Indian restaurant here called The Majestic - its situated inside a hotel in Calle Santa Domingo. I had the fortune to meet a British couple that swapped me their NZ and Oz Lonely Planet (or ´bible` as backpacker´s often call them) for the South America LP. We were both happy - it saves us both a lot of money. As hostel´s often have book exchanges, I´m hoping to exchange my Peruvian LP for a Japanese one in Oz.
My flight is at 11:05 tonight so I´ll have to celebrate New Year´s on the plane - wishing you a very Happy 2007 in advance!
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