Santiago

It dawned on me and Billy that we are already a quarter of the way through our journey. Its going too fast!

We arrived in Santiago with no chilean currency and totally clueless as to where our hostel was. The confusion came from me not realising there were four bus stations in the city and so the hostel we thought was just up the road was in fact Miles away. Once we realised this things should have got easier but Billy had the map upside down and we were both really tired and disorientated. After an hour and a half trudging round the city we found a cash point which took visa and got a taxi.

Santiago is huge and very spread out. Most of it is pretty nondescript aside from an area called Bellavista which is filled with bars and restaurants covered in art work each with their own theme or style.

As usual me and Billy explored the parks and museums and I dragged Billy up lots of high buildings and hills and he got vertigo alot and I tooks lots of pictures of the views whilst Billy leant against the wall feeling sick. All good fun. We also saw I street parade of a cross between Morris Dancing and Rave dancing, in traditional Chilean costume, see video here, http://www.dailymotion.com/trevallion/video/x5bp5f_santiago-de-chile-street-festival_travel

A highlight was the house of Pablo Neruda. He led an inetersting life (poet, diplomat, politician, exile) and his house was a proper party house on different levels with several bars and hidy holes where he jumped out to suprise his guests. His wife was a chilean pop star and latterley filled the house with fab sixties and seventies furniture which me and Billy loved despite our guide being very snooty about it all.

Unfortunately Chileans are even more difficult to understand, they dont finish off their sentences and use lots of slang. We are getting lots of practice in though.

Bye for now xx

More photos - http://picasaweb.google.com/trevallion74/SantiagoDeChile

written by  billyandsophie on May 9, 2008 from Santiago, Chile
from the travel blog: South America
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