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Santiago
From La Serena we headed to Santiago by bus for the rest of our time in Chile. We were glad to get to a city but soon realized that it wasn't much different from the rest of Chile that we had done…Our hotel was very nice though situated in the 'European' style district with cobbled streets, it was called 'Hotel Paris'.
The 1st area we explored in Santiago was the Bellavista district, situated to the NE of the city centre. There is a huge rock hill that lies in the centre of the area… on this rock is a zoo where we saw Polar Bears, Flamencos, Porcupines, a White Tiger, Penguins and a Condor close up. It was quite a walk to the top of the Zoo though! We also went right to the top of the rock by the Fenicular Railway…sort of like a tram that goes up the hillside. At the top you get a great view of the city, and how smoggy it actually is! From here you can get a connecting cable car to see the rest of the huge rock…
There are quite a few parks in Santiago, one of which we made a visit to while we were there - Park O'Higgins (aka the worst day ever). It was a mission to get there and it wasn't even that nice. There was a lake that was really dirty, a fair ground and that was about it. We did hire a 'Chuckle Brothers' mobile (4 wheeled buggy with stripped canopy and steering wheel) to go around the park, but it wasn't very successful! We also found the horse race track but there were no races onL. All in all a rubbish day!
A better experience that we had was going Wine Tasting at the Concha y Torro Vineyard… beautiful surroundings and a very enjoyable day. We tasted 3 wines (1 white and 2 red). Emily made a few faces at the red wines but the white was very nice. We only had one girl in our group so no complaints there, and our tour guide was really good! We even got complementary wine glasses to take home… but I bet the postage home was worth more!!
A few other things that we did while we were in Santiago was visit the Native Art Museum and also view the trading room in the Stock Exchange (unfortunately no trading). But we have to say that the best and most memorable thing that we did in Santiago was find an INDIAN RESTAURANT!!! Not having a curry for 6 weeks really takes it toll, so we were extremely happy to find this. It was in a hotel called Majestic and it was just so good (we visited it twice!!)
Having spent quite a while in Santiago we were not sad to leave… our South America adventures are officially over! Catching the flight to New Zealand on 20th Feb was VERY exciting… if only to get an English book and magazine!
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