After 10 hours of lovely sleep my batteries were charged and I was ready to go again. The 'included' breakfast had enough variety for me to eat too much so that I didn't need lunch and the 10 minute walk to the hop-on, hop-off bus was just what I needed to get some stiffness out of my ageing muscles.

I had the bus to myself for the first couple of stops as we headed west to the commercial centre, locally dubbed 'San-Hatten' with reference to is links to NewYork / global business, with a mixture of high and low rise commercial and residential buildings dated from the first part of last century through to today. The most notable building is the 67 storey tower (see pic), with design input from the KL Petronas twin towers and Hong Kong's financial centre's designer. Some pics below (you might need to click on to see clearly) too of looking along the avenues with the foot hills of the Andes always visible, some with snow. Sadly the quite heavy smog makes distance shots not at all clear.

I then hopped of at the Barrio Bellavista (well named) stop which offers access to the huge 722 hectare park, the zoo and ride on the funicular to make friends with the14m statue of the Virgin Mary at the top of San Cristobel Hill. I gave the zoo a miss but staggered up the many steps from the top of the funicular to take in the view (see pic of city, unfortunately with smog). Finding a restaurant on the way down I found that my rudimentary Spanish is coming back to me and I had no trouble getting the sort of coffee I like, listening in on some conversations, finding the bathroom and picking my way through the site explanations that were all in Spanish.

Down the funicular and back on the bus. Next stop Plaza de Armas, which 'reflects the city's Spanish origin' and is surrounded by a stack of notable buildings - all in the 1800's style of 4-4 stories, decorated fronts and slightly different colours. My picture of the Plaza (the second one below - the first one is of that magnificent horse..... I love horse statues) sadly misses the Cathedral on one side which was huge (and having the outside renovated) and mercifully cool and quiet inside so it was a lovely spot for a quiet, cool, contemplative sit.

As a side comment which will come back to my main tale in a tic, is that in my wanders around Santiago (Seems ages but it has only been 24 hours) I have noticed lots of dogs - all sorts of shapes and sizes ranging from many with obvious German shepherd relatives down to small, scruffy numbers) but most seemed in good condition (certainly not the mangy muts I have seen in some places) and either in peaceful slumber or trotting around seemingly with purpose. While sitting enjoying an icecream in Plaza de Armas I watched a lovely young German shepherd helping the gardener with the hoses and enjoying the splashes, then as I approached the doors of the cathedral I noticed a black dog asleep on the path just where I felt the cool air coming out and thought that was rater clever (it has been 34 today).

Then, while sitting contemplating in the cathedral I noticed a chap come in carrying some plastic bags, take a seat and then do what I can only think to call 'actively pray' ( ie with arms up stretched, then kneel and repeat). I left just after him but close enough to notice him stop and deposit several handfuls of what looked like dog food between the front paws of the aforementioned sleeping dog. It only took the dog a microsecond to hook into the food of course. If they are being fed maybe that's why some of the dogs look so ok.

Then I wandered around some more, taking in more of the historic, significant buildings such as (predictably) the city hall, Central post office, former national congress, several museums and the customs house, before making my way to the neo classically styled Mercado Central (Central markets) which is a food supply markets that reminded me of the Victoria Markets in Melbourne, only more heaps more chillies and Chilean stuff that didn't look familiar.

All that before hopping back on the bus past a couple of stops (including Constitution Square, the Mondea Palace and a stack of early 1900's government buildings) and got off at the area called Santa Lucia which has stacks more impressive buildings including yet another church, another university (I think I have seen 6 today) and an amazing contemporary rusty looking building see pic below) which I thought was part of the university next door. But as it turned out it is a performing arts centre and as I wandered through there were groups of young people practicing a hip hop type of dance routine (maybe for auditions I thought) so I had a coffee in the restaurant in the middle of all this chaos and watched them - some of them were very good. Then on the way out caught a performance by a group all dressed the same in red, white and blue who did a dance routine to the music of a solo violin. Very entertaining.

Then back on the bus back to my starting point. I think I mentioned yesterday that as part of the huge volumes of traffic (hence all that smog) are lots of motor bikes of all shapes, sizes and brands (including the tiniest, one seater scooter that I have ever seen) and apart from the obvious benefits of being cheap to run and quick among the traffic congestion, there don't seem to be any rules about where they can be parked, and the are everywhere (see pic near the shops, but outside office blocks the are just lined up near the entrance - mind you, with a lot of push bikes too).

Hot and exhausted after so much time in the hot day I had a quick dip, shower and am sitting by the pool writing this before heading to a little restaurant I found around the corner.