Our next stop was Santiago (the capital of Chile) so we caught a sleeper bus through the night, which was not quite a hotel bed but definitely an upgrade from trying to sleep on the airplane and the bus conductor walked up the aisle wrapping everyone into their blanket and tucking a pillow behind their head...no goodnight kiss or bedtime story though :(. Santiago was a hot city (Pietermaritzburg hot) but very clean, we spent two days walking around checking out their old colonial buildings and a giant park with stunning views of the city and the Andes and an extremely steep hill which we PAID to climb only to see the virgin Mary at the top of the friggin hill covered for painting which they decided to do after 25 YEARs of little maintenance to her! Argh!
Anyway the most exciting venture here was meeting up with the lovely family who showed us around Puerto Varas. ( I'm beginning to understand why Americans get all excited when they hear you are from South Africa and ask you if you know their friend Max from Nigeria?) They heard that we were staying in Santiago which is where they live, so they picked us up for the best fish dinner we have had in South America. Then they showed us around some of the residential areas of Santiago which felt very much like driving around the sandton of Johannesburg with large estates hidden behind high walls and boomed roads...chile is a first world country and Santiago showed it.
The next morning we had a day trip to the coast at Vina Del Mar and Valparisio but we miscalculated the time it would take to walk from our hostel to the bus station and had to run the 2Kms to the bus stop to avoid missing our bus..we had just plonked our bums in our seat thinking we had made it by 4 min! Phew! Only for the bus to reverse straight away, they had been waiting for us...stupid foreigners!
Vina del Mar was a cute little coastal town which had great beaches but small little coves going round the bay, nothing like Durban's long stretch of beach. The Pacific sea looks inviting but is pretty darn cold in my opinion so we opted for standing on some rocks and getting the occasional splash rather than a dip. I also saw the hugest fattest seagulls you have EVER seen in your life flying over the ocean (also known as Pelicans - hahah!).
8 kms down was Valparisio which was an old naval base - biggest port in South America until some smartypants built the panama canal. Valparisio is built on very steep mountain side which was was dotted with funiculars taking you up the hill side to stunning views across the bay. Interesting most houses were built with corrugated iron (I mean completely built, even the walls) and then painted in super bright colors which is the typical picture of Valparisio - it kind of gave the city a bohemian feel with plenty of opportunities for graffiti artists to show off. So after walking around this city the whole day we didn't really bother to note which buses take you back to the bus station which was our ride back to Santiago, and even when we did see a bus with our destination displayed in the window, the buses are not like taxi cabs where if I stepped a little into the streets and waved frantically it would stop. So again we ended up running to our bus station (about 2 Kms) with 1 min to spare! Sigh takes me back to my N American travels..