Santiago de Chile

Well I arrived to Santiago de Chile airport with very little español at my fingertips and somehow managed to get through the airport (which still reflected damage from the massive earthquake that hit at the town of Conception 270 miles south of Santiago). I arrived at the Andes Hostel (monjitas street, Bellas Artes) http://www.andeshostel.com/ a really nice place with a cute little bar super comfy beds, friendly staff and good location in bellas Artes... plus a really adorable roof terrace where you could drink beer and look out over the city... and constantly playing a really great radio station http://www.horizonte.cl/. I met some awesome people here and had a really great time. We headed to a good bar called Bar Constitution several nights, good place for reasonably priced drinks (especially Pisco sours) and meeting other travellers and locals. It was nice and discreet, just a simple grey door and blackboard outside with the name on (we really had to look for this place but it was worth it!) on Calle Constitution. It is open til gone 4am...

Went up the Cristbal to see the virgin mary statue at the top overlooking the city via the funicular trip up. Also went to see Pablo Naruda´s third house ´Choscana´ in Bellavista, a really interesting place taking themes from boats, the sea, various fruits and hidden meanings in pieces of art work. He designed and constructed the house as a gettaway for him and his lover (then to be third wife!) Mathilda so it reflects a lot of their relationship together. On my third day I visited the Bellas Artes museam (ok... worth a lok in if you are passing) and the really fantastic museo chileano de arte precolumbia http://www.precolombino.cl/es/index.php that contained lots of interesting precolumbian artefacts from throughout South America - including some huge wooden statue carvings and mummies using pre-egyptian embalming techniques (basically, removing the inards and stuffing the body with twigs and leaves).

There are a lot of dogs roaming the streets here, the strange thing is most of them lok like pedigrees so I´m not sure whether some have owners or not... anyway despite previously deciding against a rabies shot I befriended a lovely black labrodor style dog whom I called Óxo´. He was a loyal friend and followed us back to the hostel... maybe in the hope of some food.

Foodwise, Chile is good (cheaper than NZ and OZ thats for sure!) and the food consisted of lots of lomos (beef steak sandwiches) with loads of Palta (avacado) and Mayonesa piled on it.... plus I was introduced to wonderful empanadas - basically the pasties of South America... hot pastries filled with veg, cheese and ´carne´(meat) varying in quality and price but generally a cheap filling option. In my last few days I met up with Tom and Rich who I´d travelled with in Australia, plus their two new friends Becky and Britney. The five of us decided to hot foot it to Valparaiso for a look around.