Greetings from sunny Santiago - bright blue sky, bright sunshine about 30 degrees - very nice! The centre of Santiago seems quite nice - bustling without being hectic - several pedestrianised streets make wandering around easy..... - although - beware! - there is a chain of department stores in Chile called Ripley. They have 39 stores in total in Chile and 17 in Santiago - so wandering through the central streets for the first time can be a bit alarming as you keep passing Ripley department stores and you think - er?? They have a Ripley site if you're interested: www.ripley.cl

Santiago has grand squares & fine buildings and on the city tour we had the lovely Loretta - who was really sweet but i'm struggling to find things to write about Santiago.

The hotel was ok - but not very good at passing on messages - the hotel has an Easter Island theme (a bit hokey) & the bar is called the MakeMake bar - after the Rapa Nui (that's Easter Island) god (pronounced "makkymakky") - which doesn't seem right somehow - but they do run a good bar with great service...

Santiago seems to be woefully short of bars - unless they are all disguised as Ripley stores :-//

I should probably write something about the Mapuche; Temuco and Father Sadler - but that'll have to wait. I should probably summarise Chile - especially as i seem to have missed out on Valparaiso - which is meant to be lovely - but it has been a great trip, so missing out on that is not the fin de siecle......

One thing strikes me, though - and that is i arrived with a great deal of ignorance about these countries - culture, history, etc. - and ignorance is not a good thing - but there's just so much to take in on a trip like this that all i can do is memorise the edited highlights and so end up with copious amounts of "little knowledge" - which i guess makes me pretty dangerous:

Yes folks - tonight on America´s Most Wanted - armed with copious amounts of little knowledge this man is dangerous - do not approach! Do not vote for President in the next election!