Apr 12, 2005 - Santiago, Chile

Our flight to Santiago was a bit of a nightmare....we had to firstly fly UP to Panama City (stopping for 20 minutes at some random airport I don't even remember the name of, to pick up some more passengers and let some off - this stop wasn't even on our tickets and I started getting worried we were on the wrong plane!!). Anyway, all was good and we continued onto Panama, and then after a couple of hours wait we continued the journey to Santiago. We watched Finding Neverland on the way and I balled my eyes out!!! I haven't cried that much...

Apr 11, 2005 - Santiago with Darlene and Allan

12.04 We gave Darlene and Allan the morning to sleep in (poor Allan was almost asleep at the dinner table last night!)while we headed into town to do some errants. So far whenever, we've had to do this we have had difficulties and today was no exception. Our main task was to send off a parcel of cd's and stuff to Dad. We had waited to do this in Chile as we had read that Chile's post was more reliable and cheaper than the post in Argentina. After spending at least an 1.5 hours in lines just trying to get a box and label for our stuff, we...

Apr 7, 2005 - The Sheraton!! (Santiago, a secondary fact!)

(Updated by: Susie - shock , horror!!) Our flight from La Paz to Santiago involved 3 legs - up, down, up down, via Arica and Iquique in northern Chile. Once we'd finally landed in Santiago, it was interesting that our breathing seemed to instantly get easier (400m altitude compared to 4000m in La Paz). We also felt that we had landed in a very 'western' country compared to the other south american countries we had visited. This may well have been helped by the fact that we stayed in the 5-star Sheraton for the one night we were there!! I...

Apr 7, 2005 - Santiago

J'ai enfin ajoute les photos depuis Valdivia. Lonely Planet vient de mettre en place la possibilite d'uploader jusqu'a 10 photos a la fois, ce qui me facile grandement la vie. Je me fais une semaine culturelle a Santiago. A chaque jour sa visite. Dimanche avec Christophe, nous sommes alles a la Moneda, le palais presidentiel puis au musee Allende qui regroupe des oeuvres que des artistes du monde entier ont envoyees par soutien ces 30 dernieres annees. Il y avait a boire et a manger dans les peintures mais cependant une tres belle expo...

Apr 5, 2005 - Back to Santiago

Return to Santiago, April 5 I arrived in Santiago on April 5 at 4 a.m. I sat in the bus station wondering what to do. I planned to meet with a friend at 3:30 that afternoon, which gave me a lot of time before I had to meet her. I didn't have a reservation anywhere, but went to the hostel I had stayed at before. I walked in around 5 a.m., the receptionist recognized me. She told me they didn't have a bed but that I could lock my luggage and go into the TV room to sleep. I did just that. Pablo Neruda is one of Chile's greatest poets, and won...

Apr 4, 2005 - Santiago

I'm just at the end of my brief visit to Santiago, having enjoyed a weekend as far removed from South American culture as one could possibly imagine. With no interest whatsoever in eating any more chicken and rice, I have eaten bagels, fried breakfast and hot dogs over the past three days, and because there is very little of actual cultural interest in Santiago I have spent the days wandering around the very nice neighbourhoods of El Golf and Las Condes (who are both trying extremely hard to model the New York's and Washington's of this...

Apr 2, 2005 - Santiago, Chile - The Capital!!

It was an hour bus ride from Valparaiso to Santiago and for some reason, Nate had not given us his phone number, only his email address, so we spent a good time hanging out in a schoperia drinking beers and running back and forth to the internet lab to see if he was home! After a couple of hours we had finally gotten a hold of him and made our way to his appartment, where he said we could stay for a couple of days. I was pretty excited, because this meant that we needed to take the Metro-this would be my first time obviously! I just...

Mar 30, 2005 - Back to Santiago.

Taxi, ferry, walk, Subte, Cama bus, Semi cama bus, Metro, here, 30 hour trip, should sleep well tonight. My last few days on the South American mainland were spent in and around Santiago. I had a daytrip to Valparaiso but wasn't very impressed, it's famous for it's hills and Funiculars but non of them were particularly interesting, the Lonely Planet writer who wrote that you could spend a whole day riding them must be very easily pleased. The Bellavista funicular was mush nicer and I liked the plaque in my carriage which for anyone whose...

Mar 29, 2005 - Chile - Santiago

...now half way up Chile and after all the wilderness it is strange to be back in a big city, not least one, that smog prevents views of the surrounding Andes. It is nothing to compare with Buenos Aires. There is a strange mix of old-world cobble streets and full on pedestrianised malls, excellent resturants, but little on character and even less on charm.

Mar 27, 2005 - Hooray for Santiago

Well here we are ! Santiago, Chile. What an amazing place too. We arrived at about midday on Friday to a stinking hot afternoon. We found that 33 degrees and extreme jetlag is not a good combination for navigation around a new city, managing to get off our bus (by accident) a couple of stops early. With less than 6% of the population speaking any english (and our flimsy grasp of basic spanish) an interesting first afternoon was had just trying to find our hotel. Santiago is a cool city. The people are friendly and the food/beer is good....

Mar 25, 2005 - Santiago

Hello from Santiago which I'm afraid I wont be able to get to know very well as it is Good Friday today so there is NOTHING open and we are leaving tomorrow. This is not good as it also means we have no laundry facilities for a few days now. It is going to have to be recycling time for the old underwear. Ahem !!! Anyway, the night before we got here was spent in Salta de Lago where we cleaned the entire truck out. This involved some fairly heavy alcohol consumption by all as it was actually the last full evening for the entire group as...

Mar 25, 2005 - Bus to Santiago

25th March - Washed and showered and woke Conor so we could catch our 8.30am bus to Santiago a 7hr bus journey. Both of us were wrecked and slept on and off. However, both of us stayed awake crossing the Andes which was an unbelievably sight. We even got to see some Condors (I want to do this crossing again in a car so I can stop and take many more pictures). The border crossing was very strict and our luggage was even removed from the bus. Got to Santiago and used the Metro. So easy. Found our hostel which was a falling down 17th Mansion....