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October 14, 2004

ŋYo Quiero Taco Bell?

After landing in Santiago in the early afternoon, I took a shuttle bus into town and checked into the Hotel Santa Lucia. It was a nice little hotel near the center of the city and for $32 per night, canīt beat it!

I was only going to be in Santiago for 2 days and then fly to La Paz, Bolivia, where I will begin my trip into the Amazon and to the Inca Trail in Peru. I opted to stop here for a couple days because my friend that I met in Africa in 1999, Paula, lived here, but since the time I booked the flight back in February, she has actually moved to Buenos Aires. Hmmm, is that some kind of hint? I plan to visit, and she moves across the continent? Well, doesnīt matter, Iīll be in Buenos Aires in December anyway and will catch up with her then. Canīt escape me! :)

After checking into the hotel, my goals were to keep myself awake to battle the jetlag, get some Chilean pesos out of the ATM, and find TACO BELL!!! I left the hotel and went to find an ATM. When I put my card in, there was english on the first two screens and then when it got to the important screen where you choose what you want to do, no more english! I chose the first option, and it spit my card out at me with some kind of error message. I tried a few other ATMīs hoping one of them would have english, but none did. I gave up on the money for a little bit and decided to search for a Taco Bell.

I walked around a bit and looked myself for Taco Bell, but didnīt see any within about 4 or 5 blocks of wandering up and down the streets. I did find the Plaza de Armas, however, which had a small art fair with artists in action, some street performers, and the nicest looking post office Iīve ever seen. I decided to ask a hot dog vendor if he knew where there was a Taco Bell, and started with ĻDo you speak english?" to which he answered "No." Just then I heard from behind me "What are you looking for?" A guy who spoke english heard my plight and helped translate for me. He was a Columbian who has lived in San Diego for the past 14 years so spoke fluent English and Spanish. I didnīt understand what they were saying but I did pick up some words here and there. I heard the word "Centro" a couple of times. The Columbian told me to continue straight and then turn right at the second street. Off I went! I kept my eye out for a Central Street or something like that, but didnīt see one, nor did I find a Taco Bell. Grrr....

I went back to the hotel and Dey, the nice lady behind the desk helped me get money out of the ATM (turns out I had to push the "foreign account" button and it would display english) and made some calls to see if anyone knew where a Taco Bell was. She pointed me in the direction of the plaza where someone thought a Taco Bell might be. She said there would be a mall and on the 4th floor was a food court where there might be one. When I got there, to the Mall del Centro, I had really high hopes, because that must have been what the hot dog vendor was talking about, but alas, no Taco Bell there either.

I finally gave up and ate KFC for dinner and then started walking back to the hotel. Just around the corner from the hotel, I spotted this sign! Excited, I ran up the escalator only to find out that it was no longer there. Very sad.

And so that was the end of my first evening in S. America - searching for Taco Bell. Mission Unaccomplished. The U.S. presidential debate was on, and I tried to watch it, but I could only hear the first few words of each paragraph, before the Spanish dub over drowned out the english. Incidentally, John Kerrys voice was dubbed by a woman. I thought that was funny.

Posted by msshell on October 14, 2004 08:25 PM
Category: South America
Comments

awww sad, no taco bell for Michelle. Well, people, maybe we shall welcome Michelle back with all the taco bell she can eat!!

Posted by: jeff on October 14, 2004 09:17 PM

JEFF: Iīm expecting whoever shows up to the airport to get me to have a 2 taco supremes and a nachos supreme in hand!

Posted by: Michelle on October 14, 2004 10:11 PM

I hate to break this to you but I heard that Taco Bell's entire international corpation has dissolved and id no longer an entity. Something about poor marketing and being hard to fine. That's just what I have heard.

Posted by: Luke on October 15, 2004 02:14 AM

Luke: You LIAR!!

Posted by: Michelle on October 16, 2004 09:26 PM
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