Santiago 1

Trip Start Feb 25, 2007
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Trip End Aug 25, 2007


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Flag of Chile  ,
Saturday, June 21, 2008

The bus was supposed to take four hours from Mendoza to Santiago but took 8. Due to it being the first day the pass had been open for a while, the border crossing was really congested. The drive cut right through the Andes, with amazing views including the stunning Mount Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Americas.
The seven of us eventually arrived at a hostel we had been recommended in Bellavista, a really cool area in Santiago. It was very bohemian feeling with lots of chic bars and art galleries and craft stalls. The hostel was really well set up too, although we were pretty much the only people there. It had a pool table and table football and a massive tv. Starting to appreciate this stuff now as we have been told in Aus and NZ nothing in the hostels are free, pool and table football and dvds and stuff all come at a cost.
We took the funicular up Cerro San Cristobal, a hill in the middlle of the otherwise completely flat city. It has a huge statue of Mary on top and gives great panoramic views of the city and the mountains behind. Also visited one of the famous Cafe con Piernas (Coffee with Legs) cafes, as recommended by the guide book, and Marco's uncle, Luit! They are cafes with blacked out windows and doors, and you go in and get served coffee by girls in bikinis basically. Its pretty wierd and sounds really dodgy but the strange thing is they are al full of perfectly normal looking Chilean businessmen, grabbing a coffee on the way home from work, and is seen as completely acceptable. We stayed for one drink and then left, as 7 english guys wearing stupid bobble hats (we had just bought because we were cold) we didn't really fit in.
The Plaza Principal and the down town area of Santiago are really nice. We had heard average reviews of Santiago as a city and even the guide books don't rate it highly. However we have started ignoring all this stuff as mostly they are rubbish. As far as we saw, Santiago is very similar to Buenos Aires and we have found Chilean people far more open and friendly than Argentinians, who seemed much more reserved. We did a bit of shopping for skiing and enjoyed wondering around the square which is full of street entertainment. Music, artists, street performers, particularly little Chilean one man bands, boys in their school uniforms with drums on their backs, fronts and heads.

We have had some great nights out in Santiago too and met some really cool Chileans.
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