Chilly en Chile

New and the Old

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I made it to Santiago after 15 hours on a cramped and noisy trip from Sydney.   The airport was very well organised and laid out, which I didn´t expect.  Warning to future travellers, watch out for dodgy taxi representatives.  The taxis are not marked and look like normal cars and there is no meter.  I wanted to share a cab with a fellow traveller and we were quickly escorted around by a cab representative who quoted 8USD pp for a ride into town.  We agreed to this price but upon entering the taxi, he asked us to pay in Chilean pesos and he wanted 15,000 CP each which is equivalent to USD21.  He was preying on new arrivals who were unfamiliar with the exchange rate.  Luckily we managed to find a reasonably honest taxi and arrived at our hostel, albeit an hour later.

My impressions of Santiago so far : clean, safe, modern and characterless.  There are a few interesting buildings in the city such as the National Archive museum but not much else.  Other than as a hub to more interesting places in Chile & Argentina, there is not really much reason to stay in Santiago.  The choice of foods seems to be really limited.  I only saw pizza, giant burgers, icecream and coffee shops (where there are no seats and everyone stands up to have their shot of caffeine).  I met a champion female triathlete on the plane and we walked around the city for a couple of hours.  As it was Sunday there were markets along Huerfanos and alot of amusing and unamusing buskers.  It seems that anyone can busk and be able to draw a crowd.

It is FREEZING in Santiago at the moment.  It also doesn´t help that the hostel I´m staying at (Che Largato) has no heating!  It feels like Im in the Snowy Mountains....brrrrrr