Waking as what I assumed was dawn I poked Elena to rise and shine. Unfortunately the shine part of her was not so polished, shiny this morning was like an old piece of copper, tarnished and looking a little green.
With all our media devices out of sync and the fact that Elena asked me to leave my watch on the bedside dresser at home in Australia I have no idea of what the time is. I go to the shower and hear others in this little 7 room b&b moving about. Returning to the room I ask Elena to get a wriggle on and wander downstairs to get a handle on the time, OMG it’s 950am we’ve slept for 14 hours! Breakfast will be over in 10 minutes and now not asking I’m telling Elena to move!
A breakfast supplied from the B&B ( I guess that’s why it’s call a bed and breakfast) was great with fresh baked breads (still piping hot) coffee, ham & cheese, yoghurt, fruits and cereals was more that enough to feed us and get us charged for the day.
We’re both still a little shaky this morning as we’re fighting the jet lag. We have only one thing planned. For today and that’s to buy the tickets for the bus to San Pedro. Our host Anrdres gives us directions and now knowing that the bus ticket office is only two blocks away and next to one of the strip clubs it shouldn’t be too hard to find.
The air is cool this morning and we’re glad that we packed accordingly. Still, we managed once again to both keep out luggage to a bare minimum. This trip (see our blog on what to take on a 3 week trip to Thailand) we managed to keep our luggage limits to 7kg each and this time that’s for 2 months.
Donning my rain jacket and an extra long sleeved shirt we make for the strip club, no sorry, in meant bus ticket office to buy our tickets. Santiago reminds my of two cities, Melbourne in Australia and parts are similar to the small lanes in the centre of St Petersburg in Russia. These small lanes give way to boutique hotels, restaurants and bars. I’m glad Elena picked these little lane ways for our accommodation.
The strip club is exactly next to the bus ticket office! just as Andres had said it would be. I was both happy and sad at the same time. One place was open and one was not. As the lady in the Bus office wasn’t topless I guess you can figure out which was which.
We managed (or should I say Elena managed) to get us on a bus bound for San Pedro tomorrow that will leave at 11am. We could have left earlier but given how we slept so soundly I’m convinced that trying to be at the bus station for a 7am departure is too bigger risk to take.
We walk toward the square we visited yesterday and we’ve remembered the local landmarks we were shown well. Today they serve as milestones along our journey. We stop at one intersection and Elena gasps behind me “Look look!”, I turn around and there are the snow capped Andes Mountains towering above the city.
We didn’t see much of them yesterday as it was so wet. Santiago is a city sandwiched between two massive ranges, the Famous Andes range to the east and the Coast ranges to the west. With the Chilean population at 17 million, 7 million reside in the city of Santiago. The beauty of Santiago living is it’s only 100 km to the Pacific Ocean and only 50km to the mountains. The country it’s wide at any point and in many places is less than 130km from the ocean to the Andes which make the boarder with Argentina, however from north to South the country is ofer 5000 km long.
The people we’ve talked to so far have already convinced us that we’re going to have to make another trip. The locals believe that the best places for scenery is south of Santiago. We wish we had more time and I recon this is going to be a tag line throughout this trip. Sadly we know this is only a taste of what Chile can offer us.
We wander the streets looking at the architecture of the buildings, sadly of you’re an architectural historian you’re going to be a little disappointed in Santiago, but if you just love architecture and it’s balance, curvature and combination of the surrounding buildings and parks than you’ll fall in love with the old inner city and suburb of Providencia.
Our outing today covers over 10km of just walking the streets and parks. I’m saddened by seeing so many homeless dogs, but our hearts are lifted and rewarded later in the day. Firstly we notice that throughout the parks the locals have placed dog houses to keep the dogs warm and dry, the dogs look well fed and are comfortable around the people in the streets and in the parks. They sleep everywhere, in playgrounds, city squares and amongst the busy streets.
We find a supermarket and source supplies for our 25 hour bus trip from Santiago to San Pedro tomorrow. Walking through a foreign supermarket is always interesting, you look at packaging and know what it is (unless you’re in Asia) yet you don’t understand a word of what they’re saying (a bit like deciphering a nutritional value label on a soft drink). We get to the checkout and it’s then that we discover the process of buying the bread and bananas. The fresh cooked bread is sold by the kilo (which meant the breads were 25cents each and the bananas needed to also be weighed and a sticker with the price on the bag. Oh well, we got it sorted with minimal English, it’s all part of the fun of being in a country with little ( or in this case none) language skills.
Returning to the park we sat and people watched while wolfing down fresh bread and ham. Elena was surprised at the number of couples showing their openness to their partners ( there was even a lesbian couple) toward each other in the parks. There were couples cuddling lying on the grass and on the park benches.
Finding the place where the dogs were sleeping by the children’s playground I found a black Labrador awake and proceeded to take a piece of ham from the bag, I turn around to find myself surrounded in stray dogs. Breaking up the ham they all surround me. I have no fear of them jumping or attacking me, they seem to have established territories and pecking orders. Sadly I just don’t have enough ham and I feel a little guilty I ate so much. Honestly if you have a day to kill in Santiago and love dogs. Don’t want to do the touristy trails? Then got to the supermarket, buy dog biscuits and some meats and head to the park, you’ll be rewarded like I was with these beautiful dogs. I just wish I could have one more day in Santiago, as this would be my day out tomorrow.
