Saturday, March 31, 2007
To Santiago with me
After an overnight stopover in Auckland, where I was savaged by bedbugs (my first and only experience of them in my year away) my first stop in South America was Santiago, the Capital of Chile. I was a little apprehensive about arriving in South America on my own. One of the cabin crew on my flight really reassured me by telling me not to leave my hostel on my own, EVER! Great, exactly what I wanted to hear.
I flew out of Auckland at 1pm on Sunday and arrived in Chile (after a 12hr flight), before I left New Zealand, at 12pm Sunday. After queuing for two hours to clear customs, I was finally ready to venture out. What I had already noticed was the sheer volume of impressive facial hair, the moustache was very much favoured here.
My hostel was in a lovely part of the city called Bellavista, it was kinda like the St Kilda of Santiago, minus the prostitutes, or maybe the prostitutes here were just more subtle! There were lots of little cafes and markets and this was the first place I realised the difficulty involved in getting still water- aqua sin gas por favor, my Spanish was coming along a treat.
I flew out of Auckland at 1pm on Sunday and arrived in Chile (after a 12hr flight), before I left New Zealand, at 12pm Sunday. After queuing for two hours to clear customs, I was finally ready to venture out. What I had already noticed was the sheer volume of impressive facial hair, the moustache was very much favoured here.
My hostel was in a lovely part of the city called Bellavista, it was kinda like the St Kilda of Santiago, minus the prostitutes, or maybe the prostitutes here were just more subtle! There were lots of little cafes and markets and this was the first place I realised the difficulty involved in getting still water- aqua sin gas por favor, my Spanish was coming along a treat.
I didn't do very much on my first 2 days there, it was a mixture of jet lag and the words of caution from the helpful cabin crew.
By the third day I was very ready to head out and see what the place had to offer. And you know what? Santiago was NOT a scary place at all! I walked through the city, went to a museum, realised I didn't speak Spanish so the point of museums was lost on me and decided not to bother in future. Did a bit of shopping, had a nice lunch and got back to my hostel again without getting sold into white slavery, a successful day I thought! So I did very much of the same for the next few days.
So after 6 days in Santiago it was time to head on to Buenos Aires.
to be continued....
