Santiago

15.04.-19.04.11

When I arrived at the bus station in CHILLAN I was very lucky as there was a bus straight away to SANTIAGO at 5 pm! The bus ride took six hours and I arrived at 11pm at the huge bus terminal in SANTIAGO. Luckily I had a mobile, phoned the ECOHOSTEL from the bus terminal and finally checked in at 11.30pm.

I had two invitations to stay in Santiago, one with Catharina a Couchsurfer in "Barrio Brasil" and the other from my friend Hector, who I met two months before in Argentina.

SANTIAGO, 5 Mio. inhabitants, is the capital of CHILE with the beautiful snow tipped Andean peaks in the background. The longer I stayed in SANTIAGO the more I liked it. I was surprised how clean the city centre was and how well maintained all the old colonial buildings were.

On my first day I went right up to CERRO SAN CRISTOBAL where I was lucky again. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and I had a brilliant view from the 869m mountain right in the city. Check out the photos at my photo album "Santiago"! The rest of the day I just wondered around in the suburbs BARRIO BELLAVISTA, BARRIO LASTARRIA and BARRIO BELLAS ARTES with their many nice cafes and restaurants.

My plan for the second day was checking out the CERRO SANTA LUCIA, another little mountain right in the city from where I also had a nice 360 degrees view to the city. After taking a few good shots over there I went to the PLAZA DE ARMAS, visited two museums as there were free and in the afternoon I walked over to the MERCADO CENTRAL, a fish market with loads of nice fish restaurants. What a pity as I was by myself. I would have loved to share a good fish meal and a bottle of wine with someone else!

On the third day I was supposed to move to Hector who was just living three blocks away from the Ecohostel….but he phoned me the day before and told me that he had some friends around and therefore he could only receive me on Monday.

Well, first of all Catharina the Couch surfer never replied on my email and so I decided to stay with Hector. But after Hector cancelled on me as well, I was very upset and decided to stay for another night in the nice ECOHOSTEL with its friendly staff. I think Hector had a bad conscious and invited me over for a chat and a bottle of wine at his flat. It was so nice to see him again and we went up on the 26th floor of his apartment building and enjoyed the nice view by night over SANTIAGO!

On my last day in Santiago, Monday 18th of April 2011 at 9am I walked over to the PALACIO DE LA MONEDA where I wanted to watch the CHANGING OF THE GUARDS in front of the Palace at 10am. I wasn't really expecting a lot but again, I was positively surprised about the spectacular and long ceremony! Although there was a job as a night porter available at the hostel and I was considering taking it, I decided on Tuesday, 19.04.11 to continue with my travels. So I took the bus to VALPARAISO, a harbour town which is only 1 ½ hours west of Santiago.