Final day in Santiago before heading south to the Lake District. First on the agenda was Cerro San Cristóbal, a viewpoint hill by Bellavista with an extensive park behind it. The funicular railway to the top was, typically, under renovation and so the options were to walk up, wait (a very long time) for a free shuttle bus or wait for a cab. It being a nice day we opted for a pleasant walk. It turned out to be 6km uphill to the top. After 20 minutes in the scor...

And back to Santiago. The 16th was primarily comfortably spent on buses travelling back to the capital via La Serena. We arrived late evening and opted for a meat feast at a restaurant close to the hostel. Due to lack of planning we were not in the boutique Bellavista hostel this time but in a more standard backpacker place, albeit close by. First stop the following morning was Centro Cultural Palacio de la Moneda, where there was an extensive exhibit of 20th c...

(Repost, I screwed up and got confused about what we did this evening!) First things first, off to the local hospital to get Fabrice's chest looked at. The pesky cough was still very much with us. Having made an appointment the day before he was seen very quickly, and one x-ray later prescribed some super strong antibiotics. No injection in a store cupboard this time unfortunately! The hospital was excellent, brand new and state of the art. Very impressed. That...

I'm not sure why, but Santiago was one of the places I was most looking forward to visiting on the trip. It didn't disappoint. We arrived on the Sunday evening and checked into a funky boutique hostel in Bellavista, which is the place to be in Santiago. Home to (at least) one of the many universities in the city, it is primarily a student area but full of bars, restaurants and clubs which cater for everything from $1 beer to top end restaurants. Even on a Sunday...