Santiago Hotels
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Santi-bloody-ago
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Santiago, Arrived late Wednesday afternoon. Eurotel Hotel. Fairly clueless staff and not a great room.
Didn't do a lot on Wednesday as we were still reeling from the Vina Mar vineyard visit, but managed to sort out tickets for the Colo Colo vs. Boca Juniors football match (sort of South American Champions league) the following day.
To put the game in perspective, it was real David & Goliath. Boca star Riquelme earns more than the combined Colo Colo first team (mind you, that's only about £1m per annum, so he'd be pretty far down the pecking order in our own pampered premiership).
Net morning - half day tour of Santiago. It was Maundy Thursday, and when wandering around the cathedral at the start of Mass, we managed to somehow end up in the visiting priests' welcoming area. Maundy Thursday is the day when anyone who is anyone in the Catholic Church has to wash the feet of the peasants (so in Rome, the Pope symbolically washes a random bunch of Cardinals' feet; well, one foot for each lucky cardinal - one can take symbolism too far you know.
It is also the day when all the priests in the Diocese gather at the local cathedral to get their holy oil topped up & blessed for the coming year. Hundreds of them, hugging and greeting each other like long-lost friends. And we were in the middle of all of them. My first thought was 'why now, in the middle of Holy Week, busiest week on the calendar? Who's minding the relics & saying the masses back in the parishes?'
We emerged into the sunlight feeling a lot holier, and set off for the changing of the guard ceremony in front of the Chilean Parliament building. In Chile, every now and again they change the guard.......well, actually they change the government for the guard, as another military dictator takes over.
Then onto another bloody Pablo Neruda house, followed by another bloody funicular, this time to the statue of the Virgin Mary and a commanding view of the City, or at least the thick layer of smog that covered it. Our guide did her best 'and over there are the Andes -well, you can't see them, obviously, they're hidden by the smog'.
Helpful though our tour guide was, she had unfortunately managed to give Jane the impression that the area surrounding the Colo Colo stadium, El Monumental, was a cross between Baghdad and 70's Beirut/Belfast. Thoughts of travel to the game by public transport were dispelled when we found out that kick-off was at 9.40pm, and the underground closed at 11pm. So, back to hotel and we booked a taxi to take us to and from the game. 8pm - hotel taxi pitches up. Shifty driver first ascertained the fare, then set off. After half a mile or so, we questioned the cabbie about where he wants to pick us up and at what time. Oh no, says El Spineless One, He'll take our money for dropping us off, but is not interested in the return trip.
Jane was (quite reasonably) now concerned about our safety. Me, well I threw all the toys out of the pram and demanded that he either takes us there and back as arranged, or lets us out there and then. 30 seconds later, we were standing on the pavement, somewhere in Santiago with no map, and thinking about plan B. There wasn't one. We weren't going. We found a bar for a drink and I went into a deep depression; well, I sulked. We went back to the hotel. The game wasn't televised in the hotel. I sulked some more and went to bed.
In my view, the staff at Eurotel had no interest in the needs of their guests (us) and were a disgrace. And the room was pokey. So our hotel streak came to an end.
To add insult to injury, the next morning our tour guide (Baghdad, Beirut etc.) runs us to the airport. She says she thought that we might have had a problem getting to and from the game, and that she was going to call us to offer to take us herself, but she didn't have my mobile number. I bite my tongue at this point as she seems to have overlooked the fact that the hotel was connected to Bell's apparatus.
Colo Colo won 2-0. I rue missed opportunity (sulk some more) and promise never to return to Santi-bloody-ago.
(editor's note: Jane really liked Santiago and really enjoyed Neruda's house and the trip to the top of the hill. Also thought that they were a kindly, democratic lot. I'm still sulking, and wondering what she sees in a place that has taken 6 million people out of a total Chilean population of 16 million, crammed them into a geographic bowl and covered them in a layer of petro-fumes. As the Americans say, go figure)
ps - GT media team - words completed 656!
Latest Comments (1)
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Aww.. (reply)
Mar 31, 2008 23:17 EST by vixx
Don't worry Dad. I'd have thrown an almighty tantrum too, only possibly with more violence and pre-learnt swear words.
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