After having a banana for breakfast, I set off to drop off my washing, as I was down to my last set of semi-clean clothes.

I'm not sure why the Lonely PLanet lists only one place, because there's loads. Maybe because the owner speaks about three words of English?

I started my sightseeing at the Plaza de Armas, which is a very crowded and bustling square with trees and benches. The church was dark, I think it's one of the few times I've visited a church where loads of people are actually praying, confessing and doing all the things you are supposed to do in church.

I then set off towards the river, which is really not much more than a stream of mud and rubbish, very disappointing. I walked through a market, where there was one guy who had built perfectly piramid shaped towers of fruit and vegetables. I'm sure I heard someone calling me 'gringita'.

I walked through Antonia Lopez de Bello, which is a nice street in Barrio Bellavista. It feels a bit like Camden Town, with lots of little shops selling bad quality clothes and houses painted in funny colours. The street leads to the Parque Metropolitano, which is basically a big hill with the Virgin Mary on top. To get to her, you can walk, cycle, or take the 'funicular', or cable car, which I did. At the top you have the viewpoint Terrazza Bellavista where you have beautiful views of Santiago and the surrounding Andes.

Well... if you can see through the thick soup of smog that is. I could vaguely distinguish some snowcapped mountain in the distance, but that was about it. I spoke to Hugo, a Chilean cyclist who had heard about Eddy Merckx and who has a very distorted view about the Europeans.

According to him, Europeans are individualistic and independent, which I suppose is true, sad and selfish, which I hope is not true. Women are very suspicious of men and prefer to live on their own or with other women. He also claimed about 50% of the European women must be lesbians, since so many women were living and travelling together. Huh? He'd been to Switserland and his impression of the Swiss was that they were robots, just staring into space and drinking. He asked all kinds of odd questions like: 'what kind of industry does Belgium have?' and 'what are famous bicycle brands in Belgium?' so even when I did understand the Chilean Spanish, I still didn't know what to answer...

I'm having real trouble with the Chilean Spanish. They speak very quickly and whereas a Cuban would slow down and speak more clearly when talking to you, the Chileans can't really be bothered. The accent also sounds a lot harsher, less suave. They also use a lot of different words, especially for food, for instance chicken is pollo but also ave, avocado is palta instead of aguacate and so on.

It's also strange to spend thousands of pesos a day (1$ is about 600 Chilean pesos) and understanding 'dos dolares' is just a lot easier than 'mil doscientos noventa y nueve'. But then you do get a very official looking bill so you don't get ripped off so I suppose it has it's plus side.

I walked up to the statue of the Virgin, where, again, the view would have been brilliant if you coul just see it. After, I went into the 'Teleferico', a rickety thing which goes all the way down and which is, even if you are not afraid of heights, quite scary and exhilarating, as you are basically in a little moving egg hundreds of metres above the ground. The warning sign says that if there is a power failure, you shouldn't panic because there is an extra generator. And that is supposed to be reassuring?

Afterwards, I confess I caved in and went to McDonalds, where I had a Big Mac and 'McPapas' (chips). I also dropped in at the bookshop, to replace my Latin American Spanish phrasebook with a little pocket dictionary. I went to the Plaza de Armas and had a read in my guidebook.

Canadian Larry came up to me saying:
'I've never seen anyone cover up their guidebook like that!'
And here was me thinking it was less conspicuous... He said he'd been in Valparaiso, by the coast, for about a week, and that it was really nice. I might actually go there because I'm not really looking forward to three more days in Santiago, plus I'll be back here in January anyway.

After that, I picked up my laundry which was nice and clean and I bought a lovely sandwich, with avocado, egg, cheese, tomoato and loads more. Even the bread was nice.

Back in the dorm, I met the most annoying guy ever, an Israeli who kept interrogating me: where are you going? how much does it cost? why are you not with your boyfriend? you didn't answer my question! He also said it was so annoying the Chileans didn't speak Spanish. I couldn't keep quiet and said they shouldn't adjust to us, we should try to speak their language. He went: 'So if you would come to Israel, you would speak Hebrew?' I said I would at least try to speak a couple of words and make the effort. He: 'Yes, huh, like shalom. But Hebrew is very very difficult.'

I was going to make a remark that his English wasn't really that much better than my Hebrew, but I decided to just drop it, so I escaped and went down to talk to Caroline, who is leaving for Easter Island tomorrow. At about twelve, I went into bed, luckily I have a bottom one now!

My stomach is upset. Perhaps it's the McDonalds and the lack of rice and beans?