If there is a downside to staying in hostels, assuming that you are happy with the basic idea of sharing a room and a toilet with people you don't know, then it is the noise that accompanies the activities of folk who don't really care about you or the sleep you are trying to achieve. They come and go, and particularly when they are leaving first thing in the morning (by which I mean 6am, not 9am as I would normally consider early), stomping around and, almost inevitably, snorting and hawking like pigs.
Charming, I'm sure. At least we get up in time for breakfast, a sparse but acceptable tea/toast/jam combo. It's a day for exploring Santiago's centre, and hopefully getting a nice cup of coffee too. The Chilean's may be generous with their tea-bags, but they are distinctly lacking behind their neighbours when it comes to supplying decent ground coffee. Naturally, Nescafe instant coffee is everywhere.
Down to O'Higgins we go, and before long we are at the front of Chile's Presidential Palace, La Moneda, scene of a military takeover in 1973 which ended the life of Salvador Allende and saw the commencement of 15 years of systematic persecution and state terrorism in Chile.
This is a BIG FLEG. There's no way this could be removed without anyone noticing!
La Moneda. Beautiful. You can't get anywhere near the front door.
Anyway, this is as good a time as any to turn north into the city centre and see some more old and attractive buildings. Up a side street smelling strongly of wee, as per usual.
As if the British influence wasn't clear enough. I wonder if you can get a Windsor Burger here?
Santiago's pedestrian precinct is nicely busy at lunchtime. The east-west streets carry the traffic, one going one way, the next street going the opposite direction, whilst north-south is strictly for feet.
One of those big churches you always accidentally stumble upon in a city centre as you round a corner.
We had lifted a map from the hostel detailing a walking tour (that you were supposed to pay for in tips :) and we followed it ourselves. Saw most things, I'm sure, except the Plaza De Armas, because the whole area is boarded off whilst work is done on it. Well timed by us. This is La Catedral de Santiago from the other side of the plaza, obscured in part by yet more pigeons. There are many pigeons in the city. I have lashed out at many of them. I think this is also where we watched two drunken bums trying to haul a third man up onto a seat. He looked like he was about to die. This is that plaza, the one where you watch your bag and don't look too closely at the paintings being sold at the side of the road.
Plenty of Santiago's important buildings are clustered round the Plaza de Armas, which saves some time. We are starving however, and whilst we would normally linger in a cathedral, on this occasion we arrived in the middle of mass, and got out before someone spotted Sarah The Super Prod (she later had to be dissuaded from buying a baseball cap with the Union Flag on it. The Chileans really do have a love affair with Britain going on). At the southern edge of the plaza is a secret cavern of snack bars and cheap eateries. We drop into one, planning to sample the Chilean 'speciality' el completo, a hot dog smothered in guacamole and mayonnaise. That, at least, is the neutral description.
These horrid pseudo-foods were what we received. There is a photo of the 'sauces' after Sarah has scraped them off. The 'mayo' certainly bore no resemblance whatsoever to anything a chef may have created. It didn't even have a taste, though it did have a texture like Dulux gloss undercoat.
Don't expect to see us eating these again.
Mind you, don't expect to see us eating this either. Its a pizza covered in mussels. I thought I had seen it all, but Sarah's face was a picture when she saw this, something like that girl from The Exorcist.
We did make it into this church, no mass this time, so we could take some photos. Sarah explains that we shouldn't walk across the front of the church as there is a suggestion of being judged by God. However, she points out, most tourists don't know this. No, I corrected her, most Protestants wouldn't know that. Hmph. Not sure how she knew this.
The tour took us up to el museo de bella artes, where we got to see a big statue of a horse with a small head called, unusually, 'caballo'.
Through parque forestal we go, across Costanera Norte, and into the bohemian neighbourhood of Bellavista. Lots of street art up here, some nice little bars, a big hill called Cerro San Cristobal with a zoo on it, and the house that Pablo Neruda used to escape to with his mistress.
I know this looks like a Korean Presbyterian church. It might not be, but it might be.
We stopped for a beer to try and get rid of the taste of the nasty hot dog and instead found this much nicer hot dog.
The view from Cerro San Cristobal.
Back in the city, I buy a shiny new camera, and we stumble across this lovely little fast food spot.
Look closely! That bottom sign offers you a little platter of 'SIX MINI BILLYS'. Are there other cultural references to Billy Boy outside of Norn Iron?
Fancy banking buildings in the centre.
This afternoon, three days after we went to Cafe Irlandés, I read in the Lonely Planet guide about cafés con piernas ('legs cafes'), a side-effect of the Pinochet years, where you can get a cup of coffee and an eyeful of waitress (sometimes more than an eyeful) for barely the price of an espresso. So these are part of Chile's cultural heritage. They are not, and Sarah accusingly stared at me over a cocktail, merely bars with sluts working there in tiny little clinging dresses.
It was a pretty surreal experience. Most men coming through the door got a hug with their coffee or liquor. We wouldn't have actually been in there if Sarah hadn't spotted four enormous TVs on the wall showing the Champions League game between Real Madrid and Schalke, so technically its her fault. Worse yet, the Cosmopolitan she orders tastes like vodka shaken up with strawberry jam. I really should have explained what exactly goes into a Cosmo, but when you don't speak the lingo like a pro you just can't be arsed sometimes.
At least the cocktails were a quid each. We didn't get a hug on the way out the door.
There's that big flag again, looking good in the evening light.
As we head back to the hostel we find a fun looking bar that reminds me of the Limelight in Belfast, back in the days when it played a lot of good (and bad) metal and not much else. We stop for a beer, but unfortunately Sarah attracts the attention of a little sleazy creep, who makes a move for her whilst I am in the bathroom. She is very upset by his advances, and when I get back we make an impromptu exit, lest blood is spilled (not ours, I might add). That put a pretty serious downer on the end of a decent day, and we go straight to bed, disheartened and furious.
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