Back to the Mainland

Inside of the cathedral
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We arrived back in Santiago pretty late after loosing two hours on our flight back from Easter Island.  We had really enjoyed the hostel we had stayed at in Santiago the last time so we had booked three more nights.  Unfortunately it was not the same room.  In fact it was not even the same building.  This was an older hostel a block down the street and the facilities were not the same.

There are alot of things to complain about, but the one that stands out was the shower.  It was a train wreck.  It would either be scalding hot or freezing cold.  The middle ground would only come in the seconds it took to switch from one to the next.  This would have been bad enough but instead of a shower head it had a spray head for the kitchen sink.  So basically it has the force to try and remove our skin.  I went into the public showers and tried to switch to a different one that had a little more flow hoping that helped our problems.  The only thing that finally worked was to take the shower head completely apart and use it more as a hose.  But unfortunately I did not figure this out until the last day.  Needless to say Michelle was not happy and showers are now more important on reviews than comfortable beds.

Outside of the cathedral
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The next morning we slept in to help overcome the jet lag, and not wanting to do much decided that we would grab breakfast on our way to the Gondula that went to the top of Cerro San Cristal.  We managed to find a very nice cafe inside the park where we got some suprisingly good food.  However, we were disappointed to find that despite being directed here by our hostel, the Gondola was not working.  There was some major maintainance going on and it was all torn apart.  We talked about walking to the other side to take the funicular or taking a taxi to the top.  But thinking that it was not that far we decided to walk up and enjoy the various gardens and view points along the way.

Michelle smiles in front of the fountain
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Almost four hours later we actually reached the top.  Not that the entire time was spent walking but it did take a long time to walk up to the top.  Much more than either of us had planned for the day.  At the top there is a large statue of the Virgen Mary and a large open air church which was interesting to see.  We walked around enjoying the view of Santiago, which almost looks like it is tucked into Shangra-la with the snow covered mountains surrounding it.  But with only the funicular working to go down there was a long line.  So we watched as the sun made its way towards the mountains as we waited our turn to go down.  The entire sky was lighting up in various shades of red as we were riding down the mountian.

A view over downtown Santiago
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The next day we decided to go to the center of town and explore that area.  Our first stop was at the post office as we had finished all our postcards but a bank holiday had prevented us from being able to send them.  On our way to the post office we walked past a Ruby Tuesday´s and I decided that I wanted a real American Breakfast so we would try there.  South American´s do not really eat breakfast, they just have a piece of toast and coffee.  You can not even get cereal so most days we just kind of eat a light early lunch and skip breakfast all together.  But I thought I was going to get breakfast, but apparently that part of the menu was dropped and we again settled for some lunch for breakfast.

The statue of Mary at the top of the hill
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After eating we walked to the Plaza de Armas which is the center of the old town.  Here like most South American cities historical buildings ring the square.  The Catherdral is a large building dominating one corner.  Inside it is decorated with numerous painting covering the ceilings and all of the details accented with colors.  Very similar to the other cities we have visited.  However what was different was the old firehouse and post office nearby.  The post office was elequently decorated, with a fascade that compared to the Cathedrals in terms of the decoration.  The firehouse, suprisingly, was a dark shade of red, however, it had now been converted to a mall as firetrucks would not do well on the pedistrian walkways around the Plaza de Armas.

The sunsets as we wait for our ride down the mountain
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We continued to walk around town.  Santiago is a very nice town and has alot of interesting buildings to look at.  Despite half of the population of Chile living here it does not feel as crowded as many of the towns we visited.  I think that is just because it has such a well organized layout.  As we were walking around we started talking about when we would want to see Harry Potter that night.  We thought we should check out the movie theaters so we would know what times it was playing in English.  Good thing we did there was a line to buy tickets out the door and down the street.  We decided if really wanted to go we would probably have to buy tickets now.  So we spent an hour waiting in line to get tickets.

Bill infront of Castillo Hidalgo on top of the hill
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Having some time to kill before our movie we went to Santa Lucia which is a hill in the heart of Santiago that has a castle sitting atop it.  After the previous days hill climb, Michelle was saying there was no way she was going.  Fortunately the city made this hill easier to get to the top of by installing an elevator.  It was an elevator like you would find in a building except it was on the sidewalk in a tube that went up to a balcony sticking off the hill.  Not something that you see everyday.  We walked across the top and up to the view point in the tower of the castle.  It was a nice walk and gave a good view over the downtown area we had spent the day walking through.  As the sun was setting we walked down towards the end of the hill that has been turned into a large multi level fountain.  It felt weird to walk down around the fountain, but it was a nice place to watch the sunset on the moutains.

Michelle smiles after climbing to the top
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The next day we were able to again sleep in as our bus did not leave until just past noon.  We had been smart and booked the comfortable full bed bus as we new that we had 23 hours until we got to San Pedro de Atacama.  Esentially we rode in the bus almost a third of the length of Chile.  Once we left the small hole in the mountains where Santiago is we headed to the coast and drove along it.  There are alot of very remote and very senic spots along the route we took.  While not the fjords and islands of the Southern Chile, the coast still has a rocky beauty.  Soon we were watching the sun melt into the ocean.  The next morning we awoke to a completely different landscape.  It felt like being on the moon as it was just vast endless rock and sand in all directions with no signs of plants, animals, or people.  This is the Valley del Luna just outside San Pedro, we were finally there.

A look at the part of the castle at the top of the hill
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Bill