Santiago and the wonders of time travel!

Some would say its impossible to catch a bus, hop on a plane, have dinner, watch two films and have a good 4 hour snooze and arrive exactly fifteen minutes before you left your hostel. However, Martin and I are now believers having done exactly that. If I´ve lived the same day twice though does that make me a day older than everyone back home...I mean just how many hours did pass whilst I was travelling from Auckland to Santiago whilst going backwards through time??!

First stop was to find a guidebook somewhere in this huge city...well by way of an ice-cream refuelling station complete with party-hat style cones! We quickly came to the conclusion that we had been spoiled in South-East Asia and even China by the remarkable availability of English Rough Guides and Lonely Planets. Our hunt was probably doomed from the start, when I began asking for English travel paintings instead of English travel books. Fortunately the locals realised my mistake before I did and sent us in the right direction anyway...well the right direction to purchase a Chile Lonely Planet for GBP24 intead of the usual GBP16. Adament we weren´t going to spend that much we hit the supermarket where you can buy bananas for 8p a go and apples for 6p (this is more like it again!) and then got back to our little bohemian hostel at which point we pretty much crashed and burned at all of 8pm in the evening. Time travel makes you tired.

Arising nice and early at about noon, it was time for a bit of sightseeing whilst again trying to find a guidebook. First to be ticked-off the list was the Bellas Artes - not a Theatre like the one in Mexico City, but a small art collection of, well, not a lot to be honest! There were a couple of intersting paintings, but they were overshadowed by strange exhibits like a jumpsuit made entirely of red plastic beads, for which apparently the dramatic effect of a completely darkened room with wire-and-pin decorated ceiling was necessary! The city was certainly very similar to Mexico City, though thankfully with a few thousand less cars tearing around the place!

Next event - a time trial. Just how long will it take Martin to go into a chemists, purchase a 30-pence packet of plasters and apply one to his foot? After the initial problem of trying to find plasters, which we overcame by showing the security guard his blister (the dictionary didn´t have the word) we found what we desired hanging above the counter. From there on you´d think it´d be plain sailing, mainly in the direction of the exit after a quick stop to drop a few pence off with the counter, but oh no...before that you have to grab a number from the reel and wait...and wait...and wait...even if your number´s actually only 11 away!! Total time for the trial - 3 minutes to find the plasters, 18 minutes to stand in the queue and 1 minute to apply to foot!

The cathedral was next on our list of things to check out, full of catholic-style overzellous artistry, though a little less gold than the ones in Mexico. The ceiling was very impressive, as was the alter.

Not wanting to be late for our wine tasting evening we hurried on back by way of blokie on horse (just over the river from our hostel) and various chorro, empanada and hot dog vans! Our wine tasting evening was awesome fun...organised by the owner of the La Chimba hostel who certainly knew his way around a wine cellar. It turns out that remembering names of wines isn´t really my thing... I could only remember I liked bottles 8, 3, 7, 9 and 6 in that order! However I now know that those equate to: Bottle 8: Concho y Toro Casillero del Diablo Malbec; Bottle 3: Cousino Macul Don Matias Cab Sav; Bottle 7: Mission de Rengo Merlot; Bottle 9: Santa Carolina Petit Verdot; Bottle 6: Santa Carolina Syrah. I´m going to partake in a little research to find out the actual names shortly! The evening started off very orderly but after tasting 15 wines and taking water inbetween (which apparently speed up the alcohol uptake of your body), people were beginning to feel a little giddy! Well what better place to go than the Salsa club Maestra Vida?! Naturally we all made fools of ourselves...well I mean compared to the locals we clearly haven´t got a clue what we´re doing!

Places open late in Santiago...so after not making it back until the not-so-wee hours it was necessary to crash for the entirity of the following day...at the beautiful volcano-top pool behind our hostel! Life is so hard.

And then the next day it kind-of was. Martin and I spent something crazy like 5 hours drawing up our plan of action for South America, complete with map! Well-worth it though - it should avoid a bit of bactracking and ensure we actually make it to Lima on time...kind-of important! Fortunately though for our bodies, after booking our onward bus we did manage to get out and catch a breath of fresh air that day...albeit on La Calina de Los Amores (the hill of lovers), also known as Cerro Santa Lucia. Literally everywhere you looked people were making-out...on every bench, wall and spot of grass! Oh how unsuspecting Martin was...!! Later we particularly enjoyed being sent from hostel to hostel trying to find a place, after the girl who had taken our bookings for the sister hostel didn´t bother to pencil anyone in - nice! A great meal out in Bellavista made up for it.