We managed to escape Bolivia - hoorah!! As things didn´t seem to be getting any better we decided to cut our losses and go. On Friday we went to the travel agents and asked for the next ticket out back to Puno and luckily the border was open. (we found out later on in Chile that the next day they shut it again) So here we are in Santiago after a 26 hour bus journey from Arica in the north. The buses here are incredible, we went for a ´salon cama´ which is a reclining chair that goes flat and it was unbelievably comfy, just like a fat soft arm chair. You also get your meals and drinks served to you. What a difference from all the other bus journeys we´ve had over the last 9 months! So we arived in the capital on Tuesday and went straight out to eat at a bistro in town. Having been there 2 minutes the owner - an English gentleman came up to us saying ¨I thought I heard English voices, have a couple of glasses of chamagne on the house!¨ Then he got chatting to us and told us a bit about Chile and that the Chileans love the English (some one´s got to) and then went off to type up a list of places to see in Santiago and Buenos Aires. On finishing our afternoon English tea of egg mayo sarnies and scones, he then got us a cocktail on the house! So if anyone reading this out there is English and going to Santiago go to ¨Fredrick´s¨ He might extend his hospitality!
Later that night we went out to a restuarant with a live jazz band and had a scrummy meal, after chatting a little to the waiters they decided, on finishing our meal to give us one of their $20 reserve wines to take home, for free!!!!! What a wonderfull place this Chile is! Whenever do you get posh restuarants giving customers free bottles of fine wine?! Incredible.
So now Rich and I are slightly gutted that we didn´t intend to spend much time here in this friendly country. Its just too expensive to stay here for too long if you´re on a tight budget, but when we come back to South America to see Bolivia we´ll definately make some time for Chile.
Off to Easter Island today for 3 days then on to Argentina
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