What a riot!
Trip Start
Oct 05, 2007
1
70
97
Trip End
Oct 04, 2008
Santiago,
Chile
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
After helping make the free banana and strawberry pancakes this morning (we did choose well) kathryn and I set out for the city armed with lonely planet and spanish phrase book....forgott the riot gear though...bugger! We were mildly confused to see a photographer with a gass mask on his head......and then a little further down the street several young people running towards us...all became clear on looking around when we saw an army truck adorned with two water cannons coming our way so following the other fleeing pedestrians we legged it down a side street, breething a sigh of relief...well almost...before we knew it we were on the run again and taking shelter in a convenient corner shop with some of the protesters!! Once we were sure the trucks were gone we decided to take the back streets to where we were going and generally avoid students (who the trucks seemed to be after) - so with stinging noses and throats (don't know what they were spraying out of those cannons), we made our way through the streets of Santiago to the start of our Lonely planet walk. This took us to Cerro Santa Lucia (from which we had a 360o view of Santiago and the snow tooped mountains that tower over it), Palacio de Bellas Artes (an art gallery with chiliean paintings, photos and sculptures which were great although rather a mystery as everything was in spanish), the stunning plaza de Armas, Ex-congreso Nacional and Tribunales de Justicia. A quick stop for lunch at a chilean fast food joint - more empanadas de campino queso (+ mushrooms) - where everyone stands up and you pay in a different place to what you order! We then saw the Palacio de la Moneda - presedential palace - the site of the bloody 1973 coup where you need to solicit a visit a month in advance! We then enjoyed the hustle and bustle of the streets as we made our way back to the hostel.....enroute we accidently took in the main site of the protests and watched as students were thrown into vans and then had to walk briskly away as a tear gas canister was set off!
We made it back in one piece...no more water cannons - phew...though the air still stung your nose and throat! A quick rest and it was off to the bus station to book a bus to La Serena our next destination, lukily the man behind the desk was very patient as i routed through my phrase book trying to explain that we wanted a bus ticket tommorow morning...it took me a while to realise that some of the confusion was caused by tommorow and morning both being Manana in Spanish!!
