Santiago

Well I must say straight off the bat that Santiago truly is a magnificent city, couldn’t think of enough superlatives to describe the place. Very special place. Had a maniac of a taxi driver from the bus station to the hostel who was quite literally doing 100km/hr through the streets of downtown, it was like Omid Yassaie on crack. Don’t think i’d ever try it on although he seemed to know what he was doing. Dropped our stuff at the hostel and headed straight out the door to explore the place. Set off on foot into the middle of the city to find a nice cafe which you would think should be easy enough. My friend, you’d be very wrong. We walked around for a solid half hour, gave up, and went to burger king. To be fair, there was delicious food in Santiago, just elsewhere. After that meal of epically disgusting proportions we hopped in a taxi and went up the cablecar of San Cristobel to get a super view of Santiago, stretching as far as the eye could see. Really is a very beautiful place, parks dotted all around the city and a very green city all up, plenty of nice old buildings too. Had a good look out from the lookout, as you do, and caught the teleferico back down the hill. Caught a taxi back towards the hostel and had a look around the Miraflores (think that’s what its called, maybe the Miradores?) Not sure of its background but its basically a big, attractive park right next to the downtown area with lots of historic buildings and structures scattered and strewn throughout. A very pleasant place to hangout and to peruse its various appeal s, also seemed to be a popular date spot and romance was thick in the air everywhere you looked. Back to the hostel afterwards to prepare for yet another large night, as more people were leaving the tour. First stop was a top notch restaurant in the San Cristobel area, delectable quesadeas (spelling? The Mexican thing anyway) and some Chilean beers, not half bad at all. We then hit up one of the clubs not too far away, really good dance floor and Anthony Corry in particular had his ‘well-you-can-tell-by-the-way-I-use-my-walk-I’m-a-women’s-man-no-time-to-talk’ strut on. Great looking girls in Chile, unfortunately in Santiago none of them wanted a bar of us (better luck elsewhere). Pretty gold boogie session and we were there until about 4am in the morning cutting shapes when the place shut and we taxied back to the hostel. Wish I could say at this stage that we went to bed but some of us were still on a high so there were some rather disgraceful and reprehensible antics until around 6am. Corry’s arse was on display for much of that time, not a pretty site at all. Next day was an absolute write-off considering the previous night on top of the last several days and nights. Corry didn’t exit his bed until 2pm and then that was only to go to nuclear war with the bathroom, it was like Hiroshima after that spell of fireworks. Sat around feeling about 5 out of 13 on the scale of wellness until we decided we shouldn’t completely waste the day so we taxied out to South Americas biggest mall to have a look around. Went to a TGI Fridays for food and yeah, that’s the last time I go to one of those. Absolute filth, I’d rather lick a toilet bowl I think. Service was also pretty appalling so we only had about 30 minutes to look around the mall before having  to head back to the hostel to farewell a couple of the aussie girls. Not our finest tourist hours, and anyone reading this is probably bored out of their mind, don’t blame them. At least the night was better as the hostel put on a bbq for us that was ambitious in quality and quantity. Massive steaks and sausages, even a decent salad was sighted, and new bottles of red wine kept appearing in front of us; drank far too much again. Farewelled all our Canadians from the tour and basically cut the group in half as we welcomed 9 newcomers (at this stage down to the 5 originals who would see the 83 days through to Rio, myself and Corry, Brogan ‘bogan’ Cooper, Tegan ‘ginga ninja’ Webb and Victoria ‘that’s what she said’ Mear). I should note that the 9 included the prodigiously hilarious and charismatic Mike Matthews from England, who immediately asserted himself as a fine old geezer and provided many suitably comical lines, actions and insults all the way to Buenos Aires. Anyways, after disposing of the bbq and introducing ourselves, we had a quiet night in to be able to make the most of the next day. Was up early and set off for a walk around some of the pretty parks, for a look at the National Theatre building, and to one of the museums where they had some delightful photography and art, mixed in with some rather random and confusing exhibitions. Afterwards, me and Corry set off by ourselves on the subway (fricking sweet, hadn’t ridden one for 20 years and it was a very efficient, clean and cheap system) to the big mall again. Blatantly jumped on the bus without paying on the way also. Once at the mall, we mowed some superb sushi which was a bit of a struggle to order, and somehow the lady got the name ‘Patrick’ out of ‘Anthony’ then window shopped like chicks for the next couple of hours. Actually made some purchases in the end before getting on another bus without paying and riding the subway back towards the hostel. Corry was meeting up with Gab again, who was following us around like a bad smell. Nah but seriously she’s a lovely girl and both her company and her willingness to give me some time away from Corry was much appreciated. Corry was pretty much head over heels also. Anyways, whilst they were on a date, I went paragliding like real men do. Amazing experience, had a drive out to the hills with my instructor who then geared us up and we set off. One failed takeoff attempt where we smashed into the ground but the second time we were sweet and were pretty much 500m up within a matter of seconds. Exhilarating feeling and we were absolutely hooning round the sky for a good half an hour with a great view of Santiago up to perhaps a kilometre in the air. I took the reins for a while which was great fun and was even allowed to do a few spiral turns, which are meant to be a bit dangerous, while the instructor took some awesome photos of us. A much better landing than takeoff and then had to wait for a couple of other people to have their turn, although it was cut a bit short when one of the other guys yakked all over the instructor and they had to make a swift landing. Headed back to the hostel, Corry and Gab had been for a romantic meal so I got a pizza which was systematically obliterated, then we headed to the bus station to catch the overnight bus to Pucon, and when we arrived the next day in the morning, it was new years eve!