Santiago 30th May - 2nd June 2006 We arrive after a long flight in which somehow we leave 5 hours before we arrive?? So we truly are time travelers after all!! Lan Chile get less than full marks for their service on the flight over but at least neither of us has DVT when we arrive. However, we did get the last two leg room seats so it could have been worse. We arrive in Santiago and the infamous smog is pretty bad. We fumble our way into a taxi with Stu muttering the immortal words "Senor Norman" whilst pointing to himself on greeting the lady holding our name tag. Thus our fantastic Spanish (learnt when traveling round NZ from some dodgy CD) comes forth for the first time. We arrive at the fantastic 'Hotel Londres' just as if we needed a reminder of home which is located in the old town part of the city which is quite pretty. We check in and catch forty winks as our body clocks are a little messed up. Throughout our time in Santiago there were two constants. The first was that we couldn't tell what the weather was like cause it was so smoggy. The second was that the local students were kicking off big time because they have to pay for their education (what cheek!!). Every evening at about 5pm we could hear the chanting and protests starting and then the tear gas and water cannons would start and eventually the kids would disperse. We were caught up a couple of times in the wrong place at the wrong time and so had some discomfort and pain in the eyes, nose and throat. Good stuff that tear gas, does exactly what it says on the tin. We go out for our first meal and perform a passable impression of two tourists who speak a little Spanish. Aims immediately goes for the juicy steak and Stu dives into the assorted meat kebab. The bottle of red goes down a treat as well. There are no sign of vegetables anywhere and over the next few days we learn that it's a full time effort to ensure that we have at least 1 portion of veges or fruit per day. In short the Chilian diet is terrible. Our second day in Santiago confirms just how bad the smog can be, what with the diet and all we agree that Santiago must be the most unhealthy city in the world. We are beginning to feel homesick and begin realize just how good we had it in New Zealand. The architecture of Santiago also hardly fills one with inspiration. It fits right into the concrete jungle category. In fact this city is probably what the term was invented for. The highlight of the day is a walk up a small hill (former fort or something) and a visit to the tourist office. We can't wait for the football to start so that we can have something worthwhile to do. We stuff ourselves silly in the evening on Seafood and pasta and dodge the teargas on the way back to the hotel. Get up late the next day and the weather is officially smoggy (who knows if the sun's shining or what up there) and the whole big city lifestyle is starting to get us down. We get a cable car to the top of a massive hill and can actually see through the smog. The sun is shining after all. The snow capped Andes truly are an impressive sight towering over the city. We go for a walk through probably the only park in Santiago and have lunch near the top of the hill with some huge dogs sniffing around our feet. Perhaps they don't like the 124 different types of dog sh*te that we have trodden in so far. In the evening we go out to a 'trendy' part of town and have a few beers and lovely stir fried meals (stir fried salmon, lovely). We are glad to be leaving Santiago for Puerto Montt the next day and the flight leaves on time. Will keep you updated, A slightly homesick Stu & Amy.