On Saturday 7th November we arrived in Santiago by bus. We are staying in the Bellavista area for 2 nights which is central (although I took us the wrong way on the metro to start with so took twice as long to get there!). Ben doesn't like the hostel, it's too young and cool for him now he's over 30. We are both gagging for sushi so found this place near us and had the BEST sushi ever! Omg, it was so good. I'm a sushi amateur and didn't know that when you order a roll they bring 8 of them because they make a whole roll and cut it up so we totally over ordered!
On Sunday we wandered through the main plaza which is really pretty and full of palm trees and then visited the Museum of human rights (*look up actual name). It is dedicated to the human rights violations that took place during the dictatorship of General Pinochet from 1973-1990. It was really informative but very sad, there were thousands of disappearances, torture cases and murders during that time. The dictatorship ground the Chilean people down and forced them to live in fear, however in 1990 Pinochet was overthrown and since then they have grow in strength.
We went for lunch at Mercado Central, a huge fresh fruit,vegetable and fish restaurant. It was really lively and we had the chupe de marisco/javier (*check name) which was delicious.
On the Sunday evening we had booked a Chilean cooking lesson. I was so excited for this, I think it's quite a different experience to the usual tourist stuff. We were in a class of 6, us and 4 Americans plus our Chilean teacher/chef Mattias. We learnt how to make Pisco sours, pebre with sopaipillas, ceviche, empanadas and baked pears. Plus Chilean wine pairings. It was all soooo good! A really fun experience and we learnt a lot so we can have a Chilean dinner party when we get home!