Going Largo, Down in Santiago
Santiago,
Chile
Saturday, October 15, 2005
The flight down was comfortable enough, but the early arrival - 4am saw us waiting bleary eyed in an airport café till sunrise. We got talking to an English girl called Miranda, who had also travelled through Venezuela, and we swapped Roraima-ascent tales over cappuccinos.
In trying to arrange a hotel for us to stay, I was approached by a tourist official, who was very friendly, and went off and apparently phoned lots of hotels on our behalf. Unfortunately all the ones we suggested to him from our guide book were full, or so he said. He then kindly offered to drive us to a hostel that he knew of, whom he had just spoken to, and confirmed that they had space. This was all starting to sound a little suspicious, and the strong airport coffee was beginning to wake us up. We were a little sceptical that the entire city of Santiago was full, so we thanked him for his "help", said we would consider his offer and took the only honourable course of action - when his back was turned we loaded up our baggage trolleys and legged it. We spotted a taxi driver that I'd earlier made provisional negotiations with for a ride into town, and past the sight of a dodgy tourist official shaking his fist through a cloud of burning rubber, we set off for Santiago.
Our taxi driver drove us to a very pleasant hotel that Andrea had stayed in when she passed through here 3 years previously, and it was with great relief that the hotel had vacancies (this was the very first one that our helpful tourist official had told us was full, so we felt fully vindicated by our decision). The Hotel Plaza Londres was elegantly decorated with wood panelled reception and living rooms, and wonderfully high ceilings, and was clean and friendly. We stored our bags, as we were still too early to check in, and set off with Miranda to explore a little of the city, and try to secure ourselves three of the finest breakfasts that the Chilean capital could offer.
The city was mostly still asleep, and we walked for almost an hour struggling to find anywhere open. We even failed to get a McDonalds breakfast, an occasional refuge for us in Central America where McMuffins had come to the rescue of an otherwise breakfast-less morning, as they only did the normal burgers, no McMuffin-rich morning menu.
We eventually settled for dismal toasted sandwiches and undrinkable hot-chocolate, before heading back to the hotel to get some much-needed sleep. We didn't do much else that first day, but met up with Miranda for dinner that night at a lively restaurant/bar, where the food was excellent, and the wine, as described to me by our waiter, was "espectacular".
The next day we strolled around the city, and found it to be very pleasant and nicely set out, with handsome parks, squares and museums, proudly paying tribute to liberators and Chile's indigenous heritage.
I went alone one morning to the Concha y Toro vineyard tour, as Andrea had a bit of sunstroke and stayed in bed. This was my first vineyard tour, and was very interesting, despite my bus being late, and missing the English language tour. I felt that I got most of what the tour guide was saying, or at least I was able to imagine what she might be saying, and found that very interesting.
We hired a car for a day, which was rather nerve wracking to drive through the manic Santiago traffic, but once out on the open road was a pleasure. We drove up into the Andes a little way, far enough at least for views of snow-capped peaks and crisp mountain air.
On the strength of this, we decided to do a day's tour up into the mountains proper.
