#21 santiago de chile

After a drunken last night in Buenos Aires (courtesy of a big house party at the Olle brothers' where we drank up Quilmes beer big time and some other weird local concotion that tasted like medicine), we flew to Santiago (after a 3 hour wait at BA airport). Man, was it cold at night! But luckily our hostel, Plaza de Armas Hostel, was really great - right in the centre of the city in an old building that used to be a high-class hotel (Charlie Chaplin stayed there once, I was told), and we were on the top floor with a view of the square. That first night we went out for a bite of sushi with Daniel who worked at the hostel - another tick for Santiago: cheap sushi! He also showed us around the 'bohemian' barrio of Bellavista, and we ducked into a chic little bar to sample a few glasses of the local tipple: pisco sour! (like a lemon ruski, but nicer)
Daniel had just spent a year studying media in Australia at the Uni of Western Sydney, and he lived in Penrith the whole year, and worked at Penrith Panthers! How cool is that?! (He said to us, "Wow, you guys seem different to the people I met in Australia - a lot smarter.")
We also met a couple of nice English lads at the hostel who'd had a pretty rough first day in Santiago. First, just outside the airport, one of them got money out of an ATM, put his wallet back in his pocket and promptly had it nicked without him realising it. Then, in a taxi from the airport to the city, they were charged 50,000 pesos (US$100) instead of the normal 8,000 pesos (US$16). Yikes.
The next day it was bright and sunny, so we went up San Cristobel mountain in a cable car for a view of the city. Although it looked quite smoggy (see photos), apparently it was much clearer than normal because it had been raining the previous few days.
We also considered skiing in the Andes (when in Rome...), but when we realised it was only marginally cheaper than Australia and that we only had two days, we decided to call it quits.
I had developed a cold the first day in Santiago, and promptly passed it onto Kris, so the next few days we took it easy and just hung around the hotel and checked out some of the clothing stores in the area to buy warm clothes for Bolivia. One thing we did notice in Santiago was the Chilean penchant for round, perky bottoms - all the mannequins were stacked in the rear end, and I even saw a pair of (enormous) butt-padded undies for sale. And it doesn´t stop there - Santiago is full of cafes called "Cafe con piernas" (coffee with legs), where waitresses in short, short dresses serve coffee to middle aged men. The strangest thing was, nearly all the women were butt-ugly - seriously. Stocky and built like a brick shithouse. The streets of Santiago were full of women who were much more attractive than those dames...
A lot of our time in Santiago was spent trying to sort out our Galapagos cruise (finally sorted - thanks to Kris), and our means of transport to San Pedro in the Atacama desert, north of Chile. Unfortunately we ended up booking a 22-hour bus ride to San Pedro on Kris' birthday (not the best way to spend a birthday!) - but we booked the second-most expensive seats with luxury coach company. We got the "cama" seats (bed seats), that recline back 65 degrees! (Check out the flash demonstration of how far the different seats go back on http://www.turbus.cl and click on 'Servicios' on the right).
The bus trip was pretty good, all things considered. We had four meals and constant movies, but unfortunately they were all dubbed in Spanish. And I managed to get about nine hours sleep! However, our 22-hour journey turned into a 25-hour one when we were just an hour away from San Pedro: we drove under a low set of electricity wires that ripped off one of the top roof vents on the bus. The bus had to stop and try to return to the last bus station, but the wires were now sagging across the road so we couldn't go back the same way, and instead had to go the long way back. Once we returned to the bus station, we had to wait for them to clean another bus before we could off to San Pedro. But because the wires were blocking the route to San Pedro, we again had to go the long way around town before finally arriving at our destination. Aaahhh...