Santiago
I spent 5 days with friends (Rodolfo & Maria) in Santiago, spending time with them, catching up and relaxing. Walked around for a couple of days and the rest of the time was spent doing chores, eating, watching movies, football…
Santiago is much smaller than Buenos Aires, and is extremely clean. I didnt find the architecture to be as grand or imposing as in Buenos Aires, but there were still many buildings to hold your attention. Santiago has had to deal with earthquakes that took down quite a few of the colonial buildings. On that topic, I was really impressed to see how well they have dealt with the 8.5 earthquake that hit them early in 2010! You can see cracks in some of the buildings, but Rodolfo informs me that the city was up and running in less than 24 hours. I guess when a country lives in the shadow of potential earthquakes, it suits it well to be prepared to deal with it.
Day 160 Sun 6/2 Stgo
I spent a few hours walking around before meeting up with Rodolfo at the metro. The rest of the day was spent shopping, eating lunch, watching movies. Rodolfo and Maria had just come back from a couple of long trips and needed to rest. I have no complaints watching movies!
Day 161 Mon 7/2 Stgo
Walked around in Rodolfo’s neighbourhood, had lunch, booked my ticket to San Pedro and went for a couple of long walks.
Day 162 Tue 8/2 Stgo
Rodolfo and Maria had to work. I spent the entire day walking around different neighbourhoods and found myself liking Santiago quite a bit at the end of the day.
Day 163 Wed 9/2 Stgo
Spent the morning with Rodolfo and Maria at their lab while they worked to set some things that had to be done. Rodolfo drove us around town afterward – a city tour in his car. Maria has been in Chile almost a year and hadnt seen some of the sights – she was happy to join me as a tourist!
Day 164 Thu 10/2 Stgo
23 hour bus ride to San Pedro. It was a fairly boring bus ride as the views remained quite uninspiring after La Serena. The vistas grew interesting as it became dark. I woke up a few times to see images flit past. What I remember most of the trip was the starry sky.
Tags: Travel
Damu