When we arrived in Santiago something became apparent immediately; every gringo you talked to was either starting or ending their time in South America. This really hammered home that we were approaching the first milestone of the trip, making us determined to make the most of our remaining time in South America. Our hostel, Landay Barcelo was a fantastic place, located in an old colonial house with big, spacious rooms and fantastic facilities including a TV room with a monster screen! We arrived quite late in the afternoon so just bought some food (including an interesting experience trying to buy a pineapple in the supermarket...they wouldn't sell it to us because it had no price!). As we would be flying the day after next, we decided to drink our fantastic bottle of wine bought in Mendoza. The hostel had proper wine glasses so we felt we did it justice! That night we collapsed in a heap and watched a film.
After a slow start, we walked from our neighbourhood (Barrio Brasil) into the centre via a small place for lunch called El Rapido...an empanada institution in Santiago for decades. We had a few excellent choices; including prawn & cheese and 'pico' (beef mince, but unctuously tender and juicy). As we enjoyed the one in Valpo so much, we decided to join Santiago's free 'tour for tips'. Our guide Felipe was a funny, enthusiastic character; always adopting a 'power stance' before talking passionately about the local history. His speeches always ended with "and we will move on...in that direction", accompanied by energetic pointing, causing much hilarity in the group. The tour lasted 3.5 hours, taking in Santiago's best sites; including the 'Wall St'/'Sanhatten' areas that look a lot like New York, the pleasant Parque Forestal, a trendy neighbourhood (name escapes me) where we tried a Chilean Pisco Sour (sorry Chile, not as good as the Peruvians do it!), ending in the cool, bohemian Bellavista region. We hit it off really well with some members of the tour so a few of us (including the guide) went for a beer or 5. For our last meal we went to a traditional restaurant. Andy tried the local dish of 'pastel de choclo' or meat and corn pie, which was far too sweet and sickly but worth trying. Afterwards, we went to a bar whose happy hour gave you 2 mojitos for the equivalent of a fiver...dangerous. A great night with great people, including Scott from Brisbane (Oz) who has invited us to stay when we're there and will take us up in his plane(!).
The next morning was a write-off, so after checking out we recovered for a while before exploring Barrio Brasil for lunch. We went to a nice streetside restaurant and tried chorillana de marisco, same as described before but with mussels...yummy! After this, we had our last excellent South American ice cream; the apple strudel, amaretto and chocolate orange flavours didn't disappoint! Across the road, there was a cool, hippyish market so we had a wander round, buying a very cool hand-painted fabric tile of the sun (a prevalent symbol throughout Chile).
All too soon it was time to get the bus to the airport. After checking in, we had plenty of time to a) be ripped off by a Subway stall, b) marvel first-hand at the extortionate book tax of Chile...a NZ guidebook would have cost us 45 quid!! and c) play cards for an hour or two before our delayed flight took off.
Finally, it was time to board, ending our time in South America. Sitting down, we had time to reflect: How has the time gone so quickly!? What an absolutely amazing continent...we will definitely be back. Luckily, Lan Airlines is much more luxurious than Iberia, so we had plenty of free drink and even a personal entertainment system in the back of each seat to fight our blues.
