We arrived in Santiago on 7th March after an extremely good journey from Pucon. It was ONLY 12 hours and since it was overnight we slept through most of it. We also found out that we had booked ourselves into "Salon Cama" which is sort of like first class. This meant our seats reclined really far back and we had blankets and neck rests. Luxury! The bus arrived at Santiago just before 8am so we were a bit worried that we´d have to wait until 1pm for our check in (as in Buenos Aires.) It was fantastic though, we got a taxi straight to the hostel and it was practically empty. We checked in straight away, had breakfast all by about 10am, so we had a full day to explore.

Our first day in Santiago was spent mainly around the Downtown area (where our hostel was). We had a look around the shops and cafes and immediately started comparing it to Buenos Aires. Santiago seemed much cleaner and much more well kept than Buenos Aires. The pavements were in a good state (unlike BA). It also seemed to be more organised. What Santiago is missing though is the architecture and atmosphere of BA. Santiago is a nice city. Fine. We felt safe. Everything was there that we needed. There weren´t any big things to see and do, it´s just a nice big city.

After a quiet and restful second day, on the third day we decided to do the only real touristy things there are to do which was to see the main government building, the plaza and to go up the big hill. The government building is a big white building, nothing fancy, just big. According to Lonely Planet it is the top thing to see in Chile. I´m not sure why. Some guards had put on a bit of a dog show for a small group of tourists. That was good. After about 5 minutes there we went to the Plaza de Armas. This is a nice big square in the centre of downtown. There are some nice buildings, a fountain, lots of artists and trees. After about 5 minutes there we went towards the hill. The hill as it turns out is quite big and there is a Funicular that you take to go up it. At the top it´s very pleasant - trees and grass and views over Santiago. I say views, however it´s a bit of a cloudy view. Santiago is one of the most polluted cities I´ve ever been to. There is a thick haze of smog which hangs in the air and has no means of escape due to the fact that the city is surrounded by hills. At the top of the hill though is a sanctuary to the Virgin Mary. Neither of us knew it was there, so it came as quite a suprise. You go up lots of steps and then you hear Ave Maria being piped out of several speakers. There´s a little church and various small shrines where people leave messages and burn candles. At the very top there is a huge statue of the Virgin Mary (as you can see from the photo attached to this blog entry.) It was very impressive. Everyone was silent there so it made it all the more serene.

We had received a tip from one of my friends (thanks Craig) that there were a couple of really nice outdoor pools at the top of the hill. We thought they would be near to the funicular stop however we found out that they were further along the hill range. After a good walk with panoramic views we got to the first pool. It was deserted apart from a guy who seemed to work there. He asked us if we wanted to go to the pool, we said we were unsure which one to go to, then he said "go to the other one, it´s better." So we did. After another long walk up a hill we got to the "better one". Again it was very quiet however at the top of the hill there was a large pool surrounded by sunbeds with another great view of Santiago. As the day goes on, the smog gradually gets thinner, so by this stage we could actually see most of Santiago! Shil swam in the pool, she was brave. I got in up to my knees (after about half an hour). It was FREEZING. It was nice though to just relax in the sun.

The following day is a bit hazy in parts due to the fact that we went to a vineyard for wine tasting. We had been given a brochure offering the tour for about 40 pounds per person. We asked to book at the hostel and they told us it was a ridiculous price and that we´d be better off going ourselves on the bus. This turned out to be very easy and the tour would have cost us 10 pounds. I say would have because when we got there we decided to upgrade to the posh wine tasting tour which I will tell you about in a little while. The vineyard was called Concha y Toro and they produce a whole host of wines for global distribution. Their most famous wine is Casillero del Diablo which is available in all good supermarkets and off-licences. The tour started a little later than we had planed which gave us chance to have lunch and a bit of a wander around. We couldn´t wander too far though as guards were at various gateways. We did however find an animal that provided us with endless amusement. I don´t know what the animal was - maybe some kind of pheasant or peacock but when we upload the photos you can take a look and let us know. The tour guide was slightly crazy. A very nice guy and very informative, but I think maybe too many alcohol fumes had affected him. We saw the massive vineyard (which only accounted for 1% of their total crop), tried the grapes and tasted a sample of wine. I´ve only been winetasting once before, and last time I got little more than a mouthfull of wine to sample. On this wine tour we got half a glass to "taste". Our guide then showed us a wine cellar with thousands of barrels. After that we decended to the Devil´s cellar (Where Casillero del Diablo gets its name) The story is that a person was storing wine there and it kept going missing, so he put the rumour out that the devil lived in the cellar. The superstitious locals bought into this and suddenly, no more wine goes missing. At the very back of the cellar is a locked gate where they store the really expensive stuff which sells at auctions. As you look into the room you can see red light and the shadow of the devil. Our guide then escorted us to our second tasting. At this point he took us and another couple to the side and said that we were to go for the superior wine tasting with a sommelier in a private room. I liked the fact that we were getting special treatment. :-) The sommelier really liked her wine. She was hilarious at one stage she was actually hugging and cradeling a bottle. Bless. We tried 4 superior wines with an assortment of cheeses and dried fruit. It all tasted amazing. I wish I knew how all these combinations work. After the session we "walked" to the bus stop and before we knew it we were back at the hostel for a little shut eye. A very pleasnat day.

The following morning we found out the terrible news of what had happened in Japan. Just last year there was a huge earthquake and tsunami in Chile, so the Chilean news was covering the eathquake closely. We also found out that a tsunami was heading straight for Chile. That morning we were due to go to leave Santiago and go to Valparaiso which is on the coast. We ummed and arred about what we should do, but ultimately we thought best to be safe than sorry and decided to stay another night in Santiago. We made the most of our extra day and went to Santiago zoo. The zoo was very cheap to get in and there were lots of animals (some of which neither of us had seen before). It was a very sad zoo though. There were lots of animals in solitary confinement and not much room for the animals to move around. Some of the animals were just pacing up and down and looked disturbed. A jaguar had a big open wound on it´s tail and was just pacing. It was very sad indeed. We saw the giraffes and reminisced about when we saw them in the wild in Kenya, up close without the cages. That evening we dined out. While we were eating we saw on TV that 400,000 people were being evacuated from Valparaiso. It looked like we made a wise decision.Luckily Valparaiso was spared any damage and so we took the short bus journey there the following day.

We got to Valparaiso early in the afternoon and after checking into our hostel set out to explore. Valparaiso is very hilly. Basically you have the coast and a steep hill rising from it. The hills are covered with an array of buildings, some looking very precariously balanced. We go to the town centre and it was just like a scene from The Stand (a Stephen King novel Shil is currently reading). All the shops were shut, the town was pretty deserted. Some buildings are partially collapsed. Graffitti is everywhere. We were unsure whether the tsunami had hit or not. Valparaiso is a UNESCO protected site mainly due to a number of very old funiculars that scale the hills. We took one of these to admire the view. The city is huge and seemed to go on forever. There is a huge dock with big cargo ships docked and thousands of massive crates ready for loading. We were unsure about Valparaiso. It was interesting. Certainly different. We went out at night for food and saw that the town had come alive a bit. It turns out that people here work Saturday morning, then have a nap at lunchtime which goes on until the evening, at which point people resurface. We also found a whole other part of town which looked more townlike that wasn´t on our map.

That brings us up to today. Today we took the bus to Viña del Mar which is 20 minutes along the coast. Viña is lovely. It´s quite touristy, but the town centre looked very nice. The beaches were beautiful and so we spent most of the day lying on the beach. Tomorrow is our last full day here and then we are off up North to San Pedro de Atacama. We´re not to sure how much technology we´re going to have for the next few weeks so this might be the last blog entry for a bit. We´ve heard that San Pedro, although a tourist destination, doesn´t have an ATM. After San Pedro we cross into Bolivia to a small town called Uyuni to explore the salt flats. Our aim from there is to head further up north to Lake Titicaca (maybe via La Paz) and cross into Peru. That´s the plan anyway...

D