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Well it's time to go back to South America for our third season down there. We flew from Vancouver via Seattle and Atlanta to Santiago de Chile and stayed in an apartment for 4 nights to see the sights. We'd missed the capital city out last season because we didn't fancy driving through in the motor home. This way was more relaxing, albeit more expensive - $226 US dollars.
At least we had our own kitchen, small living area (the chairs at the breakfast bar were either too high or too low!), a balcony and a small bathroom. We hadn't slept on the long flights and arrived at our apartment on the 17th floor at 12-15 pm. Kirsten only held out until 5pm and Helen made it to 8pm before collapsing into bed!
Our first day of sight seeing was quite short – only a 2 hour walk to see the Cathedral, Palacio and the guards and to the main market which was closed at the time. We were still feeling jet lagged and got back to our apartment to make ourselves some chicken noodle soup but we had to wash the cutlery and dishes first! Obviously the previous occupants hadn't been in a cleaning mood!
The next day we went up onto the roof of our building for views over Santiago and of Mount Aconcagua.
View from the 27th floor of our apartment in Santiago de Chile
Then we went on a 5 hour walking tour to the Bellavista area, looking at various murals and also to the colonial area where the streets called London and Paris interconnect. It was a Bank Holiday so there were massive queues for the funicular train up to a viewpoint at Parque Metropolitana. It would have cost only 2,600 pesos each ($4-50) but there were just too many people so we skipped it. We've actually been up it before in 2002 so we didn't really miss out!
We wandered around the sculpture park where new sculptures were being worked on and saw the Sky Costanera which, at 300 meters high, is the tallest building in Latin America. We picked up some supplies at the Jumbo supermarket in the largest shopping mall and got the underground train back – 660 pesos per person per stretch ($1-10)
We got back at 7pm, tired with aching feet! We went up on the roof again to see Santiago by night. Our final full day in Santiago started off with watching our football team HSV lose (again!) but Helen got cheered up because she saw England U17 become World Champions. England U20 are already World Champions and England U19 are European Champions. So will they do that well next year in the World Cup in Russia???
After lunch we went out again to see the market that was open this time (and very smelly!!), the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes and then saw a procession taking place at the Cathedral. It reminded us of the Easter parades in Antigua, Guatemala. We also went to see a church that's supposed to be a look-alike of the famous Sacre Coeur church in France. The outside was in such disrepair, with broken windows, bricks missing, that we thought the building had been condemned and was closed down! But when we got around to the front a wedding was about to take place and Kirsten just managed to get a photo of the inside before the wedding party went in!
We went back to our apartment to do our packing for the overnight bus the next day to San Carlos de Bariloche so we could get back to Winnietwo. He had managed to survive the very cold winter in Argentina but we had to repair a coolant leak in the drivers cabin (we lost two litres of coolant through the seals of our heating system).
We spent a week at Klaus and Claudia's which was very relaxing and Claudia fed us the first night and also made us home made bread and cherry cake! We certainly appreciated that!! But on the 7th November it was time to say fond farewells.
