Melbourne to Santiago

Hola! Sitting in Don Santiago hostel, Santiago, Chile. I´m tired but wired. Not quite over the jet lag after two days, but the local wines and beers are helping to bring some equilibrium to my mind…

We left Melbourne at 8am on Monday after little sleep – still packing at 1am and stayed up late making sure e´s poddy was sinked up – no way am I spending 3 months without the ability to listen to some comfort music when ever where ever- slayer for stressful times, James Brown for funky times etc etc. When we woke up e mentioned that this was the last time we´d wake up in a comfy bed for a while… I didn´t want to get up. Luckily Don Santiago has proven that wrong already with moi comfiness.

The flight was great - movies, yummy food, champagne, scotch and cerepax (big ups to Judy on that one). Suffice to say I slept well, and woke up with the lime splice I don´t remember eating all over my shirt. Seeing the coast line of Chile was pretty crazy – conciously felt the awe of knowing I was somewhere I have never been. Flying over the Andes was also cool, as was seeing the big flat plane between Chile and Argentina. We got scanned for swine flu in Buenos Aires and managed to order our first lunch in spanish = high fives all round. Had to hang out for five hours until our flight to Santiago.

Had about 50 dudes trying to take us into the city from Santiago airport – freaked me out a bit = am discovering my true inner poonce. E took the rains and got u sonto a bus and on our way. We got our fisrt peek at the magnificant mountains from the ground and were prety stoked – they’re just huge. The whole city is surounded by them. You turn a corner and at the end of the street is the Andes – way cool. We managed to find our hostel after a brief bit of mis-direction from me, and when we ring the bell, low and behold, the better half of our travelling companions – Sarah – opens the door. Our rooms is great and soon it’s Pisco sours all round and sharing of stories – turns out they had not had bags for a day and a half after a mix up with the airline. We went out for lovely Mexican food for dinner and then a few more Pisco’s once home.

Neil and Sar took off first thing this morning on a 20 hour bus trip to San Pedro De Atacama, so we said our good byes and settled in for a yummy breaky at the hostel – turns out we have our own Chillean Mama to make us eggs and fruit and coffee – es moi bueno.

We slept some more then took off a-walking around Chile. We went to the beautiful Plaza De Armas and what I think was the Iglesia Cathedral. We went to have lunch and when I thought I was asking for the menu it turned out I’d asked for the set menu so we had yummy soup with bread and jelly for desert – was really cheap and gave us renewed energy to walk up the Cerro Santa Lucia for some great views of the city and the mountains.

We’ve just had a lovely seafood dinner and some nice Chillean Sav Blanc, and returned home to the hostel where the mulled wine was fresh from the stove to warm us up - es moi freezing and wet outside.

Tomorrow there’s time for a little more site seeing then we’re off again to meet Neil and Sar in San Pedro – flying tho, not a bus.

Wish us luck,

Luke