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We arrived in Santiago with Fabien at 7am after a 23 hour bus journey. Once at the hostel we freshened up and took a stroll to find some food before deciding to go on a free walking tour of the city. The tour was very good and took us to all the main points of the city whilst giving us some brief history of Chile. It lasted 4 hours and after a 45 minute walk back to the hostel we were all exhausted so had an early night to make sure we were on top form for the following day when Fabien's friend, Ben was flying out to travel with him for a month.
Our hostel in Santiago was perfect! The best we have stayed in so far, there is a lovely sociable terrace area with a BBQ and great kitchen so we decided to welcome Ben by having a BBQ the following evening. We cooked up a lot of food and pre drunk with some Brazilians and a Canadian couple staying at our hostel who were also going out to 'make party' as the French say. We introduced the boys to their first vodka and coke, they weren't convinced at first but after one they secretly liked it! There were 4 taxi loads going out from the hostel, we were told to meet at a certain underground station but when we got in the taxi the driver couldn't understand where it was. After a while we had completely forgotten the word and we could only say it began with B, all in English off course :-s We then decided to get dropped off in the area Bellavista where there are a lot of bars and nice restaurants, fortunately we found an English girl who walked us to the underground station beginning with B which we knew was near by. We finally met up with the others. After some discussions with Police Officers and amongst ourselves we decided to head to the club 'El Tunnel'. It was a good club and we had fun dancing with everyone. Before we knew it, it was 5am and we asked the bouncer where an after party was. He told us it was at the Catholic University so we decided to get a taxi there, we couldn't find anything so settled on a restaurant to get some food. Although this didn't work out either as they refused to serve us all for being too drunk, probably wasn't helped by some of Fabien's antics. Him and J had a bet throughout the night, who could drink more and it could be said that Fabien lost, although he claimed he was drinking 'proper drinks'!
The following day, after getting up in the afternoon we headed to Cerro San Cristobal with Fabien and Ben. Cerro San Cristobel is a big hill in Santiago which rises above the city 300metres. There is also a couple of swimming pools there and a zoo which you can visit. We just decided to take the cable car up to the top to enjoy the view of the city with the mountains in the background. The mountains were slightly shaded though because of the smog but it was still impressive. There is a small chapel at the top, so we sat there and enjoyed the sun and live music. After some time we took a stroll back and prepared for another night out. There wasn't as many people on the second night but it was still a good night.
We went for a day trip to Valparaiso with Fabien, Ben, the Canadian couple Zam and Aliya and Charlie who we met from Bury St Edmunds. Valparaiso is a city with one of the main ports in Chile. The Congress is located there as well as the Navy Offices. When we first arrived we walked around the town and you can instantly see the differences from Santiago. There are several hills surrounding the city which have lots of different coloured houses on them. We climbed one to try and get to a viewing point of the city. As we were doing so we saw the German girls that we had met in Foz de Igauzu, 6 weeks ago!! They were also trying to find their way round the city so joined us. The hill we first climbed wasn't in a tourist area and a local soon told us to head down so we found another mirrador. At the top you could see a great view of the port, some navy ships and the hills surrounding the city. It was a clear, sunny day so we could see the beach at Vina de Mar, a popular beach resort with people from Santiago. There was a market at the top so after a look around and some photos we headed back down. We did a lot of walking throughout the day as no one was too sure of good areas for tourists, but there was a lot to look at because there is a huge amount of street art in the city. Zam and Aliya had decided to stay the night so we found their hostel and then went to have a beer in a restaurant. This turned in to several 2litre pitchers. We then went to find a famous poet's house and walked up another hill! We found the house, but it wasn't very interesting so we decided to head back down and get some dinner. The German girls headed back to the hostel and we exchanged full names this time, we had felt bad before in Brazil as we had gone without saying goodbye properly because our tour was late, so it was good to see them again.
The following day was Fabien's, Ben's and Charlie's last night in Santiago. We had been travelling with Fabien for nearly 2 weeks from Bolivia so had planned a big BBQ. During the day went shopping and on our way back we went to the fish market in Santiago and got 3kg of white fish, prawns and crab claws for the BBQ. The fish market was smaller than we expected but you could see the fish was fresh; the clams were still alive. We then stopped off at the supermarket to get some steak and sausages. After some card games we started to prepare our feast. It was great food! After polishing off all the food we had cooked, we played card games and drunk heavily for a few hours...after all red wine isn't the best drink to down!
Our experience in Santiago has been awesome, we have had excellent company, great food and drink and perfect weather! For the next day we would do nothing but wash our clothes and charge the batteries for a mammoth flight to New Zealand!
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Naitsabes Sounds like one hell of a party you two!