Whereas in Peru my time was taken up with looking at things, mainly Inka ruins, and as there were some spare days between Peru and joining a cruise, Santiago was supposed to be a bit of a break when I could sleep late, and maybe, just maybe, go out at night.
I am staying Providencia, a leafy suburb a little away from the city centre, and oh how leafy it is. I am getting used to seeing street trees and trees in parks that have been allowed to reach maturity and serve their purpose, to provide shade during the hot summer days, rather than the ones you get in Greece that have been massacred annually by a Greek with a chain saw since the day they were planted.
Joy oh joy, there is a kettle in the room, and even a small cooker and a microwave, and the floor slopes downhill towards the window which you can open to its fullest extent, and the room is on the 14th floor so there is nothing to stop you jumping out if you want. There's a swimming pool and a gym too, so I went and had a look at them.
Chilean people are just as friendly as Peruvian people and according to a Norwegian that I was sitting next to in a nightclub at 4am, do not speak Spanish at all really....He told me he had lived in Spain for 20 years and he couldn't understand a word they were saying.
By all appearances Santiago is a lot safer then Lima is supposed to be, you see very few policeman on the streets and none of the barbed wire and electric fences atop the walls around houses and I had been told it was safer too.
After one walk into the city centre I decided it was time to learn to use the Metro....For less than a euro you can anywhere you want, although during rush hours the price goes up, but it is an experience taking the Metro at about 7pm, getting on to the train is difficult in itself, getting off is even harder because of the number of people that have got on after you and are now blocking the doorway.
Like many South American cities there are shades of the colonial past with some fine buildings, and little corners where old buildings remain, but much of the city has become high rise.
In Lima if you are wearing shorts and sandals you are almost certainly a tourist, but here in Santiago because of the much warmer climate such dress is de rigeur and you do not look out of place.
The central square is the place to be and here you will find artists plying their trade with varying degrees of success, a daily comedy show, and a couple of nice cafes where you can get food and really bad coffee, unless you go down the double expresso with milk route like I have been doing, and if you want to do a bit of shopping then this is the place for you to go girls. The place is riddled with so many shops and arcades that you can be here for weeks.
The national museum on the main square is fascinating, and although all the signs are in Spanish it is amazing how much you can pick up reading about such famous Chileans as Tomas Armstrong, Bernardo O'Higgins, and Benjamin McKenna. The museum goes up to the time of military rule which is fair enough I suppose, but is well organised and signed unlike the incredibly unfriendly, disorganised building they call the Acropolis Museum in Athens.
In Peru I was told to enjoy the food there while I could, because the food in Chile was not good, but within a stones throw of my hotel I found several very good restaurants, a couple of bars that pour huge gin and tonics, and several prostitutes.....They also have a lot more street cafes in Santiago than they seem to have in Peru, probably a result of the weather.
Bills are bit frightening when you get them though because they use the $ sign for Chilean Pesos, so you end up with a bill that says $10,500 for dinner, which works out at about €15, so prices here are about the same as in Peru. I don't know whether this is usual or not, but the restaurant I used, insisted on giving me another two glasses of wine every time I went there, even though there was only on glass on the bill.....
I did try to get on a one day wine tour while I was in Santiago, but as they are very popular you have to book them well in advance!
For a good view of Santiago you can take the funicular railway to the top of the Metropolitan Park, the day I did it I was treated to the life history of an American as he was telling it to a Chilean girl on the way up to the top. I gave her a pitying look as I got off a the top.....On the way up if you want you can get off the funicular and visit the zoo. When you get to the top there is a splendid view of a mobile phone mast......
The Central Station is marked on the tourist map, but I don't really know why, although it does have a fascinating roof line, but nearby is Quinta Normal set in extensive gardens which also contains the Railway Museum which was shut, the Natural History Museum, which was shut, and the Science Museum, by which time it was lunchtime. The best part of the gardens was also shut and had been for some time judging by the posters on the hoardings around it, and that was as close as I got to seeing an araucaria in its native country.
Quinta Normal must be one of the largest Metro stations in the world but for the life of me I cannot work out why.
In Cusco I got my laundry done in three hours and it cost me €6, in Santiago it took a day to get it collected and a day to get it back and it cost about €70 although they had ironed the handkerchiefs, I will know better next time and take it to the place round the corner from the hotel.
After two extreme hangovers when all I could smell the next day was juniper berries, and one near hangover when I got involved with a surprise 50th birthday party for someone I didn't even know, I left Santiago and flew to Punta Arenas, which is nearly as far as you can go in Chile without ending up in Antarctica.
I don't really know what to say about Punta Arenas except that here they only have the official Chilean power points that none of my adaptors or plugs will fit, not even the 'europlug' with flexible pins, not to be outdone by anything electrical I cut the plug off the end of one of my many power leads and pushed the bare wires into the socket and held them in place with matches borrowed from the hall porter.
A bit of a one horse town, on a Friday night the most popular place to eat was the pizza shop, although I found a place upstairs in a side road with a waitress with buck teeth and hairy legs, reminded me very much of a place in Beaufort Street in Perth many years ago. Excellent steak with no less than three fried eggs on top and about half a ton of chips.......It was here that I was introduced to a drink called 'Seaman's Shot', please don't even go there.......
Next day I joined the cruise!!!!
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