After not sleeping much on the plane due to being surrounded
by the peanut gallery, we arrived into Santiago at the fabulous hour of
3.04AM. The one benefit of arriving at
this hour is that there are few people to get in your way and delay you. One disadvantage is that there are few people
working, so you are delayed, with the exception being the aduanas (customs),
who had four people chatting at each x-ray machine but only one of those was
interested in working. They provide the
illusion of being able to expedite your journey, although it never works out
that way.
Santiago (well, Chile) retains the ‘reciprocity’ fee for
Australians and Mexicans on arrival at the airport. Aussies pay US$110 for the pleasure of entering
the country, to be renewed every 3 months.
Who knows what the Mexicans pay.
Anyway, I went and paid it (the only person on the plane to need to do so)
and headed for the immigration line. The
girls had gone ahead, very kindly taking my immigration paperwork with them,
necessitating waving frantically at them to come back.
Bag collection was the usual chaotic free-for-all with no
regards for good manners or personal space, but surprisingly our bags were not
last, meaning we got away quite quickly.
Our hotel transfer was in a slightly more upmarket mini-van
than we have used before, although the driver displayed the same South American
machismo we’ve seen before while driving – up to 130 km/h, weaving in and out
of lanes and whatever traffic he could to give the sensation of being a race
car driver. Nonetheless, we got there in
the end with only a few heart-in-mouth moments!
5AM.
We’re at an apartment-hotel in the centre of Santiago, next
to Cerro Santa Lucia. While our arrival
at this hour was expected by the hotel, the concierge was still asleep at his
desk. There was a dog curled up on the
mat outside the front door too, to make it feel like home for us. Welcome back to Chile!
After the lad from the apart-hotel showed us to our room, we
had a quick shower and then tried to catch a few hours sleep. Unfortunately Andrea’s alarm went off at
7.30AM, and the workers on the neighbouring building site were doing some
grinding and hammering, however we managed to sleep through until 11.30AM, when
the second alarm went off.
Feeling a bit more human, we headed out for a bit of an
orientation tour of the area. There’s
lots of works going on in the streets and footpaths, which means some
additional chaos on top of the cracked and broken pavements, random holes and
missing metal grates (more holes). One
needs to pay attention while wandering around, unlike one of the gentlemen I
saw today, busy ogling the ample bosom of a young lady walking along in the
opposite direction. He was so busy
leering at her that he almost twisted his ankle in a large hole. Seems there is a god after all, and she has
quite a sense of humour…
During our wander, we grabbed lunch (the girls managed to
order Nectar to drink – sugary, syrupy version of juice – the first item on
their Chilean food odyssey), bought a local phone chip, found a closed museum,
perused some shops/arcades, and picked up some supplies from a supermarket.
Back at the hotel, our wifi wasn’t working… A bit of an inconvenience, as we need to
contact people to catch up with. We had
earlier managed to arrange to catch up with one lady and her daughter (and as
it turned out, her mother as well) for the evening. After an exhilarating metro and then taxi
ride through peak hour traffic, we managed to catch up with said friends. Cheese empanadas and completos (italianos) were
on the menu – another Chilean junk food pairing crossed off the list!
At one point in the evening, it came as a surprise to us to
realise it was so late. It gets dark
between about 9.30-10pm, quite a change from Los Angeles, where it was dark by
5.30pm. I know, I know, it’s the winter
vs. summer thing, but the extreme’s in a short period of time still catch you
out, especially since the weather in LA was so similar to here in Santiago (in
terms of temperature).
Oh, I nearly forgot.
I found a new wine store in Santiago.
It’s called BB Vinos, located in the GAM complex, building B, level -1
if anyone is in the area. Small but nice
selection of wine and at least one very helpful attendant – the other was on
the phone the entire time I was in the shop.
Additionally, they sell a small selection of gourmet food items,
including salt from the Atacama Desert.
In terms of their stock, I’d guess they target the non-supermarket wine buying
crowd – I didn’t recognise many of the labels!
Anyway, a nice day was had by all.
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