Chile

Our flight from Auckland to Santiago took us across the international date line, which meant Monday lasted nearly forty hours. Most Mondays seemed to last this long when we were chained to our desks in London, so this was nothing new for us. We did, however, have our first real battle with jetlag since our journey began. We only had two days in Santiago and we spent many of our daylight hours sleeping off the jetlag.



We spent our first day in Santiago walking around some of the main sights such as the Plaza des Armas, Mercado Central, Palacio de la Moneda and the Mapocho Railway station. We stayed in a hostel in the Bellavista area of Santiago, which fortunately is also home to the best bars, clubs and restaurants. We ate surprisingly well in Santiago, and the food & drink was far cheaper than we’d expected. Chile is considered to be one of the most expensive countries in South America, but with a good bottle of Chilean wine costing less than ₤2 and a bottle of Havana Rum costing less than ₤5 we felt that it was great value.



When we eventually dragged ourselves out of bed on our second day it was nearly 2pm, so we had to try and make the best use of our remaining time. We then did something that we’re both very ashamed of. We went on an open-top bus tour of Santiago. We’ll be shunned by the backpacker community if they find out, so please keep this information to yourself. As this was our final evening in Santiago we took a cable car up to the top of San Cristobal (a large hill in the centre of the city) and watched the smog-enhanced sunset from the foot of the colossal Virgin statue that stands there. We then caught the funicular railway back down to Bellavista and ate at a superb Chilean restaurant before returning to our hostel with yet another bottle of Chilean red wine. Fortunately for us our hostel was also home to a number of travellers that had already spent a few months in South America, so we were able to pick their brains over a glass of Vino Tinto about the choicest spots to visit.