Friday, 3 September 2010
Chile
We were rushed for time in Chile but spent time in two very different places. Firstly San Pedro de Atacama. This is a small oasis town in the middle of the desert. As you may remember we were holed up there to give Betta to get over her tummy problems, and while we had a nice (and expensive) room, we could have been in a better town. San Pedro is pretty damn boring. It's a tourist trap where many tours of the surrounding areas start but the town itself is not very nice. Loads of aggressive touts, drunks oggling western women, wild dogs everywhere, new age hippies and weirdos and the tourists that they are all courting. It's also really expensive.
Anyway, as you can tell we didn't really enjoy it there so we pushed off to Santiago as soon as we could. A cool 21 hours later and we pulled up to what seemed like civilization again for the first time in ages. We were both immediatey very impressed with the Metro system which was very clean and modern and we checked into our nice hostel in a posh neighbourhood called Provedencia.
One reason for going to Santiago was so Betta could meet up with Jorge, a friend from the states when they were both on the same exchange program. On our first night Jorge invied us to have a family dinner. We were greated with a Pisco sour (Pisco is pretty much the national drink), local wine and some wonderfl home cooked food and good conversation. Thankfully everyone's English was better than our Spanish.
On our second day Jorge, Natty and Felipe offered to take us on a day trip to Valpairiso, a faded port town with wonderfull hills coverd with colourful Victorian buildings and many funicular railways up to them. We went for a wonder, got caught up in filming for a movie and bribed our way around an amazing old dilapidated mansion. We went to a bar that's been there since 1896 (and looked like it!) before heading home via a restaurant to try a local dinner of Churrasco. I.e., the worlds biggest and meatiest sandwich. Very nice it was too.
We only had 3 nights in Santiago but both of us felt very much at home there. The only slight downside was that it is significantly more expensive than most other countries in Latin America. Everyone said that the south of Chile was a must see, but we had neither the time or suitable clothes so that will have to waid until next time. We would like to say a really big thank you to Jorge, Natty and Felipe for making us feel so welcome, for showing us the sights and introducing us to the lovely food and drink of Chile (even the Piscola!). We owe you a few tours in Norway.
Next Stop, Argentina.
M&B
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Hey! how is been everthing in Arg? send me yours emails!!!! Next time we going to the south...send me sushi from japan :)
ReplyDeleteFelipe
Hi Matt / Betta
ReplyDeleteI am loving your blog ... it provides great light relief from London corporate drudgery. Dead Llamas! ... you couldn't make this stuff up!
Keep up the blog and eat something exotic for me ;-p
Nick McEwen