Landing in Chile was a weird experience...we took off from New Zealand at 5pm on Saturday and landed at Santiago international at 2pm on the same day, 3 hours before we took off after being on the plane for 15 hours!
But land we did and instantly we fell in love with South America, its incredible, the people, the city, the architecture all of it. When we got to our hotel we checked in and went out to explore. The first thing we discovered was that South america was a whole other ball game from Asia, at least there some people spoke English but here, you looked like the locals blended in and nobody could even count to 5 in english, but we LOVED IT! it was what we came away for to get into the throws of local life and not be just another tourist. We had 2 full days here and did a good bit of exploring, just to walk around the city and look at this sights was beautiful, the architecture was astounding, and you could look at it all day. We spent some time in the Museo De Arte and saw some beautiful pieces of art work and history including 3 mummies found in the surrounding area. We tried all the local foods, and the santiago speciality which surprisingly is the hotdog with onions, sour cream and guacamole which was yummy although ordering it was a bit challenging lots of pointing and "si, si si!" So that night we went home and learnt our numbers, and some basic phrases. On an evening we chilled out in the plaza de Amass the thing that was so captivating about the city was the squares or the plaza's that were dotted around. Ever evening they came alive, old men playing chess, people shouting things that sounded oh so political and exciting could actually have been a window salesman as we had no idea! there was a man who was drawing on the floor outside the huge cathedral with chalk some beautiful pictures. One night sat in a bar man came up dressed like a native indian with his dumpy little Pocahontas wife., he shouted something in Spanish then began to walk round banging this drum and shouting something, which we were sure was "pay me and ill shut up!" then Pocahontas comes round cap in hand! There were flower sellers and magicians and a little market and the beauty of it was nobody spoke a word of english, it was totally for local people not for tourists, it would be like if they moved Khao San Road from Bangkok to Stourbridge town centre it was so nice to just be able to watch.
We also go involved in some street demonstration, they are all so passionate, there was a band and dancing and singing and everyone was having a brilliant time it was so much fun!
We spent our final day having a walk around all the local sights, we saw the Palacio De La Moneda which is a symbol to the locals of their now freedom from the oppression, and saw the old bibliotheca, and finished the day by climbing the 629m Santa Lucia Hill, which had really nice views over the city and all its old buildings not to mention some beautiful fountains, parks and terraces all joined by beautiful stairways and ruins, it was a really nice place to relax in the sun for a while.
And then it was over, we spent our last night eating the local speciality, hot dogs with tomatoes and guacamole, and walking around the Plaza de Amas, soaking up the atmosphere before we left for Buenos Aires, it really felt like we were on our way home and that it couldn't get any better than this...but how wrong we were!