We finally got into Santiago and got a taxi to the hostel where we had booked into for the start of our tour. They had no rooms available for us so we had to go to another one down the road, we decided to get a private as we needed to sort all our bags out before the tour.
For dinner that night we went to a takeaway place and got a large pizza with wings and garlic bread. We ate the wings and bread and got really full so saved the pizza for the next day.
The next day we did a free walking tour of Santiago, there was only 4 people on the tour and the guide was really good, we were walking for about 5 hours and saw loads of different parts of the city from old narrow streets to the parliament areas, parks, churches and new modern areas which were all completely different and each felt like completely different cities. Santiago was a really cool city, there was tons to see and do but just walking around you would see so much, it also felt very European and quite relaxed and the people were really friendly. we really liked it. It was red hot as well, the sun was out all day and was really nice weather. That night we finished off yesterdays pizza for dinner.
The following day we checked out of the hotel and went to the first one as we actually had a reservation. They couldn't find it anywhere though so we had to show them proof. They said they had no room so would put us in a private, but check in was not until 3pm! So we went out to get lunch in a hot dog place that covered the hotdog in Mayo salsa and heaps of guacamole. It was nice but they put so much mayonnaise on it that it was very sickly. We walked around a bit then sat in the hotel until we could check in. After checking in we met the tour leader and had a welcome meeting, there was only us two that were starting the tour, there was another girl as well but she had a sister on the truck already, everyone else had already been on the truck for 2 months. We met the driver and then sat outside with other people from the truck, they seemed nice and we had a couple of drinks and then went with them to a steak house. In the steakhouse we met a few others from the truck. We ordered a 500g steak each which cost about $10 and it was amazing, probably the best steak we've ever had. Everyone was amazed that Gráinne finished hers and then finished off a plate of chips.
We left the restaurant and then went to bed soon after as it was an early start.
We got up at about 6 and were waiting for the bus, we met a few more people, there were 19 altogether on the truck, which was loads compared to the 7 we had in Africa. We then saw the truck pull up, a massive yellow Scania truck with 23 seats in the back that was kitted out very well inside. The seat layout was different to Africa and a bit smaller so felt quite cramped. Everyone was quite quiet on the truck and people said it was strange because quite a few loud people had left the truck in Santiago so were quite shocked at the change.
We stopped for lunch and had salad sandwiches at a petrol station and then carried on to our first campsite.