Santiago, Chile!

Having completed the Pachamama tour we returned to Santiago, the capital of Chile where 
Id arrived a week earlier with my Dutch travel buddy Lucienne. Wed explored a little of 
the city then, but not much, as Lucienne only had one day left and she wanted some 
serious tan time by the pool. 


We caught the rather efficient and new looking metro (Barcelona or Paris metro systems 
spring to mine) into the centre of town and walked as far as the Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC) which was free to get in and had some interesting exhibits. Neither of us understood most of them, especially the one which was was a statue of a woman lying down with a swan giving her oral sex?! We didn't bother trying to interpret that one...

No pics of the aforementioned offending piece of art, just a view of the museum inside...

The weather was stifling and as we were both exhausted from having lugged our backpacks 
from the bus terminal earlier that day we returned to our gringo hostel in Barrio Brazil to relax. 


Given it was Lucienne´s last night of travelling we wanted to give her a good send off so 
we decided to go out. Having showered and put our faces on (amazing what mascara does to the eyes after not wearing any for a while) we were ready to go. We enquired at the 
hostel reception as to where was good to go in Santiago on a Sunday and the response we 
got was pretty surprising: "No one goes out partying on a Sunday in Santiago" No, Im not 
lying. That was the actual response we got. It did make sense though. We hadn't seen 
hardly anyone around that day. Given we weren't going to waste our made up faces we ended up drinking in the hostel bar in the garden. Disappointing Santiago, disappointing.


Having returned to Santiago with my new found Pachamama buddies, I was ademant I was 
going to have a good night out in this city. We ended up in a local bar called Voodoo (it 
even had a giant voodoo doll outside) where happy hour was in full swing. Given there was 
about twelve of us, it was understandable that some of the drinks orders would get confusing, however, our barman was utterly useless. Not only did he bring the wrong drinks, he brought them a different times as he kept "forgetting" (code word for incompetent) 


Finally we all had our drinks. It was then that we started to rememenise about our 
Pachamama adventures. One thing that kept raising its head, as it were, was the incident 
where one of our fellow Pachamamarites, Amy, had been shat on by a seagull. This event 
unfolded on one of the days before I joined the tour. It transpired that as a result of 
said shatting, Amy, or one of the other Pachamamarites came up with the saying "Shaton 
par Seagull" said in a French accent. This saying then evolved into a designer lifestyle 
brand with all of us posing in pictures with our arms shaped like seagulls personifying 
le brand. I guess you had to be there to fully appreciate this all, but it did make us 
all chuckle. 

The party continued back at the hostel bar where a rather competitive game of doubles 
ping pong pursued in the garden - inevitable when alcohol is involved. Id like to point 
out that whilst Im no Forrest Gump when it comes to playing ping pong, I am still pretty good so Ill happily have a game with anyone who would like to challenge me. :D


Unfortunately the next day everyone had to go their seperate ways, some onto the southern trip of the Pachamama tour, others back to their home countries. I therefore decided to move hostels to see another part of the city. 


One of my travel buddies who Id met in Argentina had recommended a hostel in Providencia (metro stop Buqueano) which had only been open for six weeks. I took her advice and checked in. It was like staying in someones house. Literally, as it only had a few rooms and it was a detached house on a residential street. I was given a room all to myself 
(single bed and a bunk bed - lucky me!) and immediately settled in. The owner was a 
Californian Surfer who was a bit of a character to say the least. His Chilean girlfriend 
was on vacation so it was him and his other Californian buddy running the hostel. Think 
Bill and Ted from the late 80´s film Bill and Teds excellent adventure and you get my drift. 


They were both lovely but I got the impression it was the Chilean girlfriend that ran the 
show, and given she wasn't there, everything was pretty chilled out on the service front.

pretty residential road where the Surfer hostel was

As Id only spent a little time in Santiago I decided to do a free walking tour around the city. The guides just ask that you tip them whatever you feel like at the end. Or not as the case may be. It was really interesting, albeit very hot, walking around and being told the history of the city´s political past. 

Not sure why there is a riot van in this pic?

Some political graffiti

The presidential palace where the former president Salvador Allende killed himself

This pic made me smile

Afterwards I treated myself to a shopping spree at the enormous shopping mall in the north of the city. Given that my North face anorak had been stolen on one my previous bus journeys I felt I deserved a new one :D Surprisingly I discovered a concession of Topshop in one of the department stores there?! The clothes were all last season though...

Toppers!

The next day I decided to explore the area local to my hostel and discovered a cute barrio called Italia which excitingly had a Über cool looking hairdressers called Berlin. It had been almost three months since Id tended to my tresses so I was in desperate need of a trim. I went in and fell in love with the décor of the salon. Given I love the city Berlin, the name wasn't bad either. The salon was a mismatch of antique furniture, paintings of horses and a bit of taxidermy thrown in for good measure. Somehow I managed to tear myself away from the fashion magazines lying on the coffee table and speak to the receptionist to arrange a cut and colour. 


Id like to take this opportunity now to say that throughout my life I have rather 
shamefully always judged a book by its cover. With the exception of during my job I might 
add. That is one area I have managed not to let this trait ever stray into. Rather it 
tends to be places. I've done it alot during my travels, sometimes I have been right 
(Osono in Chile you are guilty) about my impressions and other times Ive been wrong 
(Buenos Aires Im sorry...) 


Anyway, my point is that you should never judge a hairdressers salon by its decor. Ever.


Given my desire to have long hair a la every South American woman, I was growing my hair 
and went into the salon only wanting a trim. I came out with a femullet. Thats female 
mullet for those not in the know.


There are no words to describe my anger / upset. None. The stylist literally attacked my 
hair with a razor blade, thats right, NOT scissors. Before I had a chance to tell her that
razoring my hair is disastrous (Ive experienced it once before and my hair and razors do 
not a good pairing make) she had lopped off half my hair in a feathering frenzy.


All this the day before I was meant to meet my BF who was flying into see me. Joy. 


To make matters worse, Id asked Bill and Ted back at the hostel a few days earlier to reserve a double room for the BF and I, however they had mucked up and not made the reservation and it had gone to some "other couple"?!


I was not a happy mulleted bunny.


Thankfully the minute the BF arrived through the arrivals doors at Santiago Airport and spotted my home made sign with his name on, all my woes dissapeared. It was soo good to see a familiar face again after travelling for so long!


The room mishap also didnt put a dampener on things, as thankfully there were no other travellers booked into my three bed room so we just put the matresses on the floor and made our own double bed : D Little did we know that this would prove to be a running theme for the rest of his trip, but more of that later...


That afternoon we walked to the Cerro San Cristóbal which is a hill in Santiago which offers panoramic views of the city - smog permitting...

View of the Cerro from street level 

We caught the funicular up to the top of the hill and marvelled at the views which were amazingly smog free. There we walked up further to visit the huge statue of the Virgen de la Immaculada Concepción but unfortunately she is undergoing a facelift currently so she was covered in scaffolding. I´ll have to make do with having just seeing Mr JC in Rio instead.

Going up...

View from the top

Going down...

From the top of the hill you could see the construction of The Gran Torre which is soon to be the tallest building in South America. Im sure they are earthquake proofing it but I still  wouldn't want to be at the top when there is one...

Big boy building

That evening we ate at a Peruvian restaurant around the corner from the hostel. I had been told about the Peruvians culinary prowess by fellow travellers however given that neither I nor the BF had ever eaten food from there we were a little apprehensive...I kept thinking of guinea pig for some reason...or is that Bolivia?! Either way we were both pleasantly surprised and the food was a delicious medley of seafood all washed down with a Peruvian Pisco sour - I had to have the BF try one!


All in all Santiago is an interesting place, its not the most beautiful city either of us has been to, nor does it have as much charm as the other South American cities I've visited. But randomly it does have its own version of London´s BT Tower!

Santiago clearly doesn't have the same concerns over falling satellite dishes as BT...