Santiago Hotels
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Donde esta los baños?!!
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Still feeling the effects of alcohol and jetlag, we set off around the city to explore. Santiago is a city with a lot of character and changing faces. Walking around Barrio Bellavista, you are confronted with multi-coloured houses and graffiti covering most walls. Not the type of graffiti in the UK with people writing tags and "Tracy and Dave forever", but faces, pictures and multi-coloured scenes. You could almost go as far as saying they are pieces of art with a spray can, aesthetic and welcome to the eye. A lot of bars and restaurants are covered in their own type of graffiti showing scenes of what they sell.
Walking into the downtown centre, we passed by lots of statues and fountains. Some are surrounded by sleeping stray dogs and others are surrounded by sleeping tramps. A couple of streets on and you are in the centre of the shopping district. There are a plethora of shops, malls and coffee shops. Even the occasional Starbucks rears its ugly head. Churches and museums are in abundance and can be seen on most streets. The main town square reminds me a lot of Rome. The architecture of these buildings is very detailed and has statues covering big cornices and pillars. This is immediately contrasted by new glass mirrored high rises that tower over the city with plenty more in development. That mix of old and new has angered some locals yet others embrace the change.
Around the corner was a garden on a hill like a little oasis in the centre of the chaos around it. Around the next corner was a flea market with most of the goods on sale looking dirty and used but it still attracted quite a crowd. People were being entertained by a puppet on a street corner, while others were kicking away the mangy dogs and others were pushing past to get to work. It seemed that we were walking through different cities and Santiago was changing street by street in front of our very eyes. It was hard to believe. In order to get a good birds eye view of all of it, we traveled by cable car (not sure how safe it really was!) up to the famous San Cristobal's summit as the sun was setting. The view over the city was phenomenal. In the fading light the Andes really came into view and we grabbed some great pictures. Arriving at the top, we were greeted by a big statue of the Virgin Mary and a lot of locals that pay homage most days. We took in the breathtaking views over both sides of the hill and decended via a train back into the hectic night of Barrio Bellavista.
The bars are mostly an outdoor affair, with plastic tables and chairs donning most pavements and you are greeted with the familiar hola as they try to coax you into their restaurant. Getting back to the hostel and closing the gates after a long day was a blessing. I happened to make friends with a resident kitten that lives inside the hostel gates. It is so cute I think it might even rival Winnie (sorry Mandy!). This is also one thing that has been pulling at my heart strings; the amount of stray dogs and cats everywhere. There are beautiful Huskies and Labradors just living on the streets with the saddest eyes looking for food and affection. Every time I walk past one it makes me so sad! One day when we were walking near the hostel a little dog followed us all the way home. It was so cute but we couldn't make him go away. I think it was the way we were saying it, we just couldn't bring ourselves to shout at him! Nick says they can pick out the foreigners and know they won't get a kick from us.
One day it was so crisp (cold!) and clear that we were able to see the Andes so clearly so we traveled back up the San Cristobal for some more pics. They are amazing. So getting all of the touristy stuff out of the way, we set about attending our Spanish lessons. Our teacher, Mariana, met us every day for 3 days for 3 and a half hours per day and helped us get to grips with the basics. Well, we now know how to ask where the toilets are so that is a definite bonus! We covered verbs, numbers, directions, restaurant and hostel vocab; it was a bit like being back at school. The classes were supposed to last for a week but due to time we cannot spend much longer in Santiago and so we had a crash course of Spanish instead. Nick did incredibly well especially since most nights we were up late and the hostel wasn't really a peaceful place to learn!
On our last day of lessons tomorrow, we have a "class trip" to a nearby town by the sea, Valpraiso, with Mariana. This is to test out our Spanish in different situations and then if we get stuck Mariana is there to help us. We shall see how we do! More thumbnails ...
Latest Comments (2)
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Graffiti! (reply)
May 12, 2008 14:27 EST by starlagurl
Is it art? You bet! Maybe it's illegal sometimes, but more often than not, these are very talented artists, with big ideas who don't get the chance to paint on canvasses at home.
Louise Brown
TravelPod Community Manager
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Graffiti! (reply)
May 12, 2008 12:04 EST by starlagurl
Is it art? You bet! Maybe it's illegal sometimes, but more often than not, these are very talented artists, with big ideas who don't get the chance to paint on canvasses at home.
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