South America Part 22 - Santiago, Chile

We got up at 7am in an attempt to beat the Japanese tourists to the sole shower at Casa de la Bugs. After we both had an shower - the owner then told us that we were the sole guests at Casa de la Bugs (so we didn't have to get up at 7am - d'oh!).

The bus ride to Santiago was smooth (for us) but not so smooth for a couple of elderly american tourists. When they got on the bus - they were trying to get into a seat occupied by a woman who didn't speak any English (all of the seats are reserved a la flight travel). When the bus was 20 minutes out of town - the bus conductor (yes - they employ an extra person on each bus to check the tickets) discovered that these Amercians were supposed to be on the 0950 bus to Santiago not the 10 o'clock bus that we were on. It was a major drama for the bus driver and the conductor (even though half the bus was empty).

We had our first "serious" packbacking session on arrival at Santiago. Carrying our collection of Imelda Marcos t-shirts and Argentinean shopping (an extra 10 kgs) - we made our way thru the mecha-busy metro. Ant almost decapatitated a local with his backbag on the train.

What we immediately noticed in Santiago was the heat (after dealing with the not so warm weather of Valpariaso and Vina). Back to t-shirts and shorts...

On route to the hostel in Santiago - we passed several youngish people waving flags for that chick Presidential candidate for the upcoming Chilean Presidential election run-off. A couple of weeks ago - Chileans went to the polls but since no one candidate achieved 50% of the vote - they have to go back to the polls in a run-off with the top two candidates. There is the left wing chick and the right wing megalomanic billionare owner of LAN Chile. Stayed tuned for an election result in the new near.

Ant had been completing hyping up the hostel where we are staying at (the Bellavista) as it was in the top 10 most popular in the world as voted by users on the website hostels.com. It is nicely decorated (lots of art and strange movie posters including "Dead Man" and "Happiness"). The maid here is super friendly (although she can't speak a word of english). She thought it was cute that we were a couple. The location is very quiet (a rarity here on the continent) but our room is a bit like a prison cell (window, bed, but not crud bucket).

After hunting down a cheap "beer and kebab" (or kebap as written on the poster) cafe for lunch - we made tracks back near the bus terminal to go to the Chile Communist Museum. Ant was desperate to get some more propaganda art since our trip to Vietnam. After taking a short cut thru the local university (which seemed eeriely dead since it was right before x-mas), we arrived at the museum - unfortuneately it was shut for rennovations / removalists... the story of our holiday.

Dissappointed but not destroyed - we continued our sightseeing and walked (for ages - Ant loves his death marches) to the Plaza de Armas (every Sth American country has one!). The Plaza and downtown was super busy (but we didn't realise that this was the last working day before x-mas - the 23rd of December). Hands on wallets time!

We headed to the Chilean National Muesum situated at the plaza. The museum was a lot less "full on" propaganda as the Naval Museum in Valparsaio and covered from pre-Spanish to pre-Pinochet. Unfortunately - it felt like it glossed over the Communist years of Chile (viva Salvador Allende) and was void of anything General Pinochet (except it did cover a little bit Pinochet's American-backed take over of Allende and the communists). Also - everything was in Spanish but Ant had his copy of Espanol/Ingles dictionary at hand.

After navigating thru the middle of Santiago and the massive pre-x-mas crouds - Ant and I both had a desire for either a thickshake or milkshake. We quickly checked out McDonalds (embarassing) - but no where on this continent can you get a thickshake at McDonalds. Burger King - ditto... After walking around for 20 minutes - we found an Ice Cream shop that sold "Milkshakes" but on closer inspection - a Milkshake looked more like an Ice Cream Sunday (complete with nuts and cherries) than a milkshake. In desparation - I checked out a local super meracdo - only to find the closest thing to a milkshake/dairy based moove product was "Nestle Drinkable Yoghurt".

We crashed for a while back at the hostel (I was sort of coming down with a cold). We settled for Hot Dogs and Hamburgers (the Chilean national cusine) for dinner. If Morgan Spurlock ever wanted to do a sequel of Supersize Me - the cusine here at Chile would be great to focus on.

We headed back to the hostel - which appeared to be in party mode. Everyone was dancing to bad early 90s (Herbie - Right Side of the Mood and Real 2 Real - Move It) and latino music. The maid was wanting us to join in - but I felt really bad (flu) so I called it quits. The volume of the music was putting our next door neighbour in Canberra to shame.

Ant, who was really wanting to check out the clubs here in Santiago, joined in on the festivities. The majority of people staying here, surprise-surprise, are Australian (hence all alcholoic). We have both heard of really bad stories of people with airlines coming here to Sth America. Even one brit had been arrested in Colombia after "abusing" LAN staff at the terminal. At about 1am - all the guests went out to a nearby seedy gay club (although everyone is straight) - but Ant called it quits.