Santiago Hotels
|
  | |  |
Don't you think it's a little Chile around here?
Entry 26 of 42 | show all | print this entry |
I wish there was more I could say about Santiago. I mean, even I was disappointed by how little I acheived in Lima, and thought that Santiago would offer a more cosmopolitan city experience than the one we faced in Peru. OK, there had been a Starbucks, a Golden Arches and somewhere for Marge to get her french manicure updated, but it wasn't as fully developed as we had expected.
But I hadn't anticipated how far ahead Santiago would be. We arrived into the city early in the morning (3am!) and the following day headed off to explore the city. After the poverty and low level of development in Peru, Santiago was a real shock. It would put most European cities to shame. It's got a fabulous metro system (no joke - every time we arrived to buy our tickets, we missed a train. And every time, in the time it took for us to walk down to the platform there was another one waiting for us. Well, not just for us...but you know what I mean) , motorways like you wouldn't believe and as we were staying beside the city centre, we were blown away by the skyscrapers. Much more developed than I expected, and much wealthier. Butworst of all....much bloody colder. After the 25deg heat of Bolivia and Peru's 'winter', Marge and I were freezing in weather not unlike an Irish summer.
Anyway, after a few uneventful city days, Marge and I had planned to take a bus towards a ski resort just across the border of Argentina called Los Penitentes and get in a few days skiing. It seemed like a great idea - the snow was supposedly still great, Argie ski resorts are much cheaper than Chilean ones, and the resort was just off the road to Buenos Aires, where we figured we'd be heading to next. But in my cocky travelling manner, I (not we...just me!) decided not to book any accommodation, as I'd heard rumour that there would be loads available cos it was off peak season.
Big mistake.
After crossing the border and getting another proudly collected passport stamp or two, we arrived in this tiny resort at around 6pm, and headed straight to the fanciest hotel we could see, where we were told there were no vacancies. The guy at the desk was very helpful though, and gave us a long list of the other places to stay in town. So, feeling optimistic, I left Marge and the bags in the lobby of the hotel with a cup of tea and headed off, man-the-provider-style, into the town to root out a room for the next 5/6 days.
Naturally enough, as its a bloody ski resort, it was FREEZING. And I walked from one hotel to the next, from one hostel to another and each of them told me the same thing - they were full, and were booked up solid for the next week.
After more than an hour of trudging around and watching my extremities slowly turn blue, I headed back to Marge and we agreed that we'd move onto Plan B, which was to call a hotel in Mendoza and make a booking, catch the 9pm bus there (it was 3 hours away) and be safely ensconced and asleep by 1am. Not an ideal end, but we'd manage.
So we sat down in the lobby, ordered a drink and a bit to eat, and waited until 8.45pm to head outside and wait for the bus. We stood there beside the busstop for 45 minutes, growing increasingly cold, and I finally went into a petrol station to ask when did the bus usually come along.
"It came at 9pm" he said
"Don't be daft" I told him, "I've been standing there since 8.45 and there hasn't been a dickie bird of a bus"
"But...it's now 10.30 - the bus left more than an hour ago....!"
Feckarsefeck. In our cross border 3 hour bus ride from Santiago, we had (unbeknowst to us) changed time zones, and our watches were now an hour behind....so now we were stuck in a freezing little town, with no room at the inn (any of them) and had just missed the last bus out.
You can imagine how much colder it suddenly became.
Time for Plan C. In my wander around the town, I had seen one very fancy looking hotel with a huge lobby area and two massive log fires, and I figured I had just enough Spanish to explain to them what had happened, and just enough Irish to charm them into letting us use their reception area couches to sleep on. So in we went with our sob story, pointing at our watches and waving in the general direction of the now departed bus. Of course a little pity was shown, and the manager said we could stay, so we mooched over towards a fireplace and sat ourselves down with our books to unwind and wait until the place got a little quieter before we could fall asleep.
We hadn't been there 5 minutes before we started to hear this strange noise coming down the stairs. It couldn't be...surely....but it was. Some Argie teenager was coming into the lobby shaking a maraca. Followed by another lout with a guitar. And these Pied Pipers were followed by around 15 other 'yoofs' intent on sitting in the lobby (aka our bedroom for the night) and singing until the wee hours.
Finally, at 2am they gave up and headed off to a nightclub, and we had the hotel lobby to ourselves. We settled in, put our feet up and fell asleep. Well, I did...Marge had the unfortunate luck to be woken up as the yoofs came back home from the club at around 4am, and spotted three of them laughing at these homeless Irish people asleep in their hotel. Feckers.
The following morning, we high tailed it out of "Los Penitentiary" as we affectionately called it and made it into Mendoza. Which was just.....fabulous. We had a great hotel, the city is small and easy to walk around, its spotlessly clean and very well-heeled....and its right in the middle of wine country, so everywhere you go, people are pouring fine Malbec down our necks.
We went to some fab restaurants, ate SLABS of fine Argie beef, enjoyed the countries custom of having a coffee and a pastry at 6pm in a fancy patisserie - which helps stave off hunger until dinner is eaten at around 10pm....we even marched into a 'wine and cheese pairing' evening in a swanky tasting room....and generally made ourselves feel less like homeless people.
Backpacking ain't all that bad sometimes.
|
|
If you like this entry, search for other entries from Chile or try a new search. |
| |
| Table of Contents |
| 26. | Don't you think it's a little Chile around here? - Santiago, Chile Sep 03, 2007 |
|
|
|
|
Back to Entry - Back to Home
|
24 votes 
This is a top pick!
