18/4/09 The long flight went well (11 and a half hours), but neither Dave or I got a window seat so we couldn't get any pictures. I didn't manage to get any sleep, however, so I was horrifically jetlagged by the time we arrived. After all, my body clock thought it was 5 am on the 19th when it was actually 1 pm on the 18th, local time - four and a half hours before we had set off! The food they gave us was lovely. We hadn't been given an exit stamp at Auckland airport for some reason, so I thought they might say something about it in Santiago, but they didn't.

We were mobbed by taxi touts when we had collected our luggage and been through immigration and customs, but we brushed them off and enquired elsewhere about the bus into town. This we managed to catch, for the price of $1400 (Chilean Pesos) each. That's the equivalent of about 1 pound sixty, for a 16 km journey! We were so, so glad we had booked our accommodation in advance. Our hostel - La Casa Roja - was just around the corner from where we got off the bus, and it was fantastic. It's in a converted old historic mansion, so there was heaps and heaps of space and it was really, really atmospheric. There's a pool, too.
We went for a walk around after we had settled our stuff into the hostel. It was how I imagined - Spanish graffiti, some colonial buildings, and an incredibly old-looking church now fenced off and propped up by logs.We also walked along the long thin park by the bus stop we had got off at earlier - 'Los Heroes'; named after the statues of famous men in the park.

We went to a supermarket to get some food for dinner, and made a happy discovery - some of the food is extremely cheap! Dave noticed some 1 litre beer bottles which were selling for the equivalent of less that 1 pound, but didn't get any. Not everything is cheap, but the stuff we got was (pasta, tomato pasta sauce, Fanta, and frankfurter-like sausages.)

19/4/09 Like yesterday, it was warm and sunny today. After breakfast (scrambled eggs, toast, jam, cereal, milk, pineapple juice & coffee, for only the equivalent of about 1 pound seventy!) we walked down to the Los Heroes park, to sit down in the sun and decide where exactly we wanted to go. We hadn't decided the day before because we'd been so tired we'd just gone to sleep straight after dinner, at about 7.30.

We walked on into the city centre, passing by a very official-looking building with a flag on top and fountains outside on the way. First of all we looked for an ATM, and we had a few problems finding one. All the ones we saw were inside banks or in separate rooms, and they were all closed because it was Sunday. Eventually we found one that was open, but the ATM inside wouldn't take our card. We found out it was because it didn't take Visa cards. Worried, nonetheless we decided to leave the money situation for the time being and visit the places we'd planned to visit, because they were all free.

The first place we went to was Santa Lucia. This is a forested hill with paths, walls, terraces, gardens and neoclassical/gothic buildings on. It started off with a terrace at the bottom with a big fountain and a classical facade behind the fountain; two stone staircases lead up and across to the hill just behind it, where paths wound up to the top. On the way up, there was a big terrace with an old brick archway, a couple of old cannons on, trees, and statues; massive boulders (one with what looked like a sort of cactus growing out sideways from a crack); lots and lots of trees; a tiny chapel with a statue of a bishop or archbishop outside; and finally, Torres Mirador, which was a flight of stairs and a looking out point right at the very top, built in a miniature castle-like style. The whole thing was beautiful! The views were absolutely amazing; Santiago is built on a massive plain surrounded by mountains, and so it was a fantastic sight to see the city reaching so far into the distance, with the mountains looming over all the skyscrapers. On one side it looked a lot like Uluru had been transplanted behind the city, because although browner and obviously covered in scrub rather than just bare rock, and it looked a bit out of focus because of the smog, to me it had the same majestic air (forgive the cliche) and looked as vibrant and imposing. I took loads of photos of everything!

After we had left Santa Lucia, we walked back the way we had come. We had enough small change to get a drink, so we did, and then as we passed another shop Dave spotted an ATM inside! Better still, his Visa card worked in it -such a relief. After this we crossed the road to go to the oldest church in Santiago, Inglesia San Francisco. We couldn't see the right entrance so walked round it to find it; it was connected to other buildings on the other side, so we walked round them as well. I'm glad we did, because it turned out we had wandered into Barrio Paris Londres, an area of town where the streets are cobbled and lined with 1920s & earlier hotels and mansions. Two of the main intersecting streets are called Paris and Londres, hence the name of the area. It was very atmospheric, and we both really liked it.

I was even more charmed when we had found the main entrance to the church and I had gone inside, because it was unlike pretty much any I've been into before. My first experience of a South American Catholic church, and certainly not my last. It dates back to the 16th century. The architecture was fantastic, and distinctive, because as well as old Spanish colonial architecture, it has Arabic touches to part of it too. A big service was in progress so apart from one quick discreet photo of a historic plaque on one of the walls, I didn't take any photos in case I got thrown out (I thought it best to not draw attention to myself.) Luckily, I wasn't the only person just walking around looking rather than taking part in the service, so I didn't stand out too much. There was singing, and people queueing to come up to the front, so although I was too busy looking at everything down the two sides of the church to notice that much in the middle, where the service was, I could tell it was probably a communion service. It was all in Spanish obviously so the only word I recognised was 'amen'.

In the walls of the church, and in some clear boxes by the pillars, there were statues and models of various saints, all painted brightly; and one of them was quite gruesome, as it was of the torso and head of Jesus, with the crown of thorns on, lots of bloody wounds, and a very distressed yet otherworldly expression. There was a shrine to the Virgin Mary of course, and this had lots of tiny plaques attached to it with writing carved into it, and little pieces of paper with writing on; the words 'por favor' and 'gracias' recurred a lot so I guessed these were private prayers from people supplicating to her. There was lots of graffiti carved into some parts of the pillars and walls, as well as some written on, and there were at least two big carved wood boxes with one side open, one with a priest inside. There were lots of plaques on the walls as well, with writing carved into them, and I thought it a real shame that since it was all in Spanish, I couldn't understand what nearly all of it meant. It had such an incredibly historical atmosphere, and it was very different to the Catholic cathedral in Suva, Fiji, and the cathedral in Calcutta (this was also historical, but not quite as much and looked different inside. I can't remember if it was Catholic or not now though.) As I left, the service ended and most people came out, crossing themselves before they turned to go through the door. There were a couple of beggars sitting outside with alms bowls; they hadn't been there when I came in, so they must have got there deliberately before the service ended to catch all the people as they came out.

When I told Dave what it was like inside, he went in to have a look around too. While I waited I noticed that the Museo San Francisco was next door; I had read about this in the guidebook and it sounded very interesting, but as I looked at it the doors closed, and when I went closer I saw that it closed at 2 pm (it was now 2.10 pm.) I was a bit disappointed, but I soon got over it because we were going straight on to the national museum (Museo Historico Nacional) and passing through more of the historical centre of town on the way. We walked through Paseo Ahumada, the pedestrianised main shopping street, passing by a couple of informal religious choirs armed with guitars, and a gathering of passers-by being spoken and sung to by some people at the front. I could tell the latter was religious too because they looked a bit evangelical with enthusiasm and had a colourful religious banner at the front.

At the end of the street we reached Plaza de Armas, which dates back to 1541. It used to have a gallows in the middle, though that space is now filled with a statue of the founder of Santiago, Pedro de Valdivia. The square is filled with benches, trees, and street artists, and is lined by several important buildings. The Museo Historico Nacional (national history museum) is one of them; it's free on Sundays, a happy coincidence because this was our only full day in Santiago. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos of any of the exhibits, and there were too many other people around to take any photos on the sly. We didn't understand most of the given information because of it all being in Spanish, but a lot of the exhibits were very interesting and you could work out quite a bit from them. They had artifacts from the Mapuche Indians and other pre-European cultures, and then paintings and artifacts from the European invasions and from the following colonial period, right up until it ended in the 19th century. They also had exhibits about their Republican history, Chile's industrial revolution, and the military coup of 1973.

On the way here we had walked past another building on the side of the Plaza, the big Catedral de Santiago. It's Neo-Gothic on the outside; We stepped inside to have a look around, but a service was just beginning and people were handing out service sheets to everyone who stepped through the door, so since I couldn't explain to them that we didn't actually want to join in but just look around, plus we felt a bit pressurised, we just had a brief look from where we were before going back outside. From what we saw, the decoration was jaw-dropping, particularly the ceiling! It was spectacular. On our way out we were ambushed by the same woman trying to sell us religious curios who had waylaid us on the way in, but we refused her attempts and walked on.

We had a look round the stalls selling paintings and engravings - a couple of them were working on ones as we went round - before walking down one of the other streets leading off the Plaza. There was a market here selling antiques, books (none in English unfortunately), prints of paintings, old adverts and posters, bags, clothes, sweets (neither of us happened to be hungry so we didn't get any), rings and watches, and there were a couple of stalls which from the accompanying pictures of disgusting-looking sores, blisters and skin infections, I guessed were selling patent medicines. We didn't get anything, but now I wish I'd got a couple of the prints! If I see anything like that in the next couple of months I'll make sure to get them then instead.

We walked back home from there, stopping at a shop on the way to get a couple of drinks. (I hadn't expected to find much chocolate milk in Santiago, but there not only was some, it was some of the most chocolatey ever!) We had pasta and a tomatoey sauce to go with it for dinner, and decided not go in the pool after because the sun had gone down and the water was unheated.