Travel Story «Santiagos´ second chance»

Chile | 2 Comments 08 January 2007 - Last Update 18 January 2007

OK, Day 2 in Santiago. We awoke at the but-crack of dawn on account of having slept for about 14 hours and after a small but yummy breakfast in the Hostel accompanied by some potently strong coffee (not that we needed the caffeine but a little extra buzz goes along way), we decided to enquire with the oh-so-handy-aren´t-we-glad-we-checked-into-this-hostel?! in house Travel agents as to the Must-Do´s in Santiago and where we could head for a couple of days of R&R in Chile or even Argentina.  All travel agents based in Hostels in New Zealand and Australia, and even in S. E. Asia, had been falling over themselves to help you, so why should this place be any different.  Well it was. This is how the exchange went:-

Ola. Hablas Ingleesa?
Yes I speak English.
Oh great! We wanted to enquire about a few things - possibly heading up to Peru and doing the Inca Trail, possibly heading across the border to Argentina and where would be good to go and what´s good to do here in Santiago?
I can´t book or tell you anything about the Inca Trail but here is a website you can look up.
Ok... thanks. How much would it cost to get a bus to Peru and would you times and availabilities?
I don´t know you will have to go to the bus station for that. I can check flights for you? When would you like to go? 
Ok, thanks. Day after tomorrow...?
Cue lots of typing ...more typing. More peering intensely at the screen. More typing.
There´s a flight on that day for...ooh, it´s expensive... that will be $795.13. 
One way?
One way.
Well, thats kinda out of our budget...
I´ll try a different day for you. 
Cue more furious typing. Aisling and I stare aimlessly around the room.  More typing.  Some tumbleweed blows past.  More typing. More tumbleweed. A dog howls...
Hmm. Still same the price range. $785.46. 
One way?
One way. I´ll try another day.
That´s ok.  I think we can pretty much rule out flying as it seems to be out of our budget. How long does the bus take do you know, approximately?
Too late. She was already typing away.....
Yes, no. The day after that seems to be a similar price.
Do you know how long it takes on the bus?
Big sigh. Atleast 2 days to Aririca, and that´s still in Chile.
Gulp. Ok. How about where to go in Argentina. We have 10 days before our friends arrive...?
Well where do you want to go?
We don´t have anywhere particular in mind. Is there anywhere you would recommend?
Silence.
We heard Mendoza was supposed to be nice...?
Yes, it´s nice. 
Hello stone, can I have some of your blood?
Would you recommend it for a week? I heard it was kinda an activity centre?
Yes there´s lots to do there.
Or is there somewhere near Santiago, a coastal town with nice beaches....?
Bigger sigh. Pass me that map there. You see here Valparaiso? That´s nice.
Nice beaches?
They´re ok. ..... Or maybe Vina Del Mar. They also have nice beaches. 
OK, that´s great. Thank you for all your help. We are going to go think this over.

Dear God!  After that ordeal we ventured into the Big Smoke for a much needed break form Travel-Useless Agent, and to see what all the fuss was about.  
Hmm... Santiago.  Full of hecklers. It´s like being back in South East Asia again.  Everyone is pointing and shouting things at us. Ok, they are not shouting so much as saying them to us, but when they walk right up to you and pointedly say it to your face and then make a loud kissing type noise to go with it, you can´t help but be slightly intimidated and wish that they had shouted it at you from the other side of the pavement/road/country.  Oh and FYI, it is OF COURSE, just the men that do this. Old, young, fat, small, tall, skinny- it doesn´t matter. Men. Men old enough to be your father (and grandfather) and it is yucky.  I wouldn´t mind this too much if we were such oddities, but the Chileans themselves are very light skinned so our oh-so-pale skin isn´t that different! Ok, so our hair isn´t jet black but then NEITHER IS THEIR!  And they dye it all sorts of colours.  You might think that their women are more... modest dressing than Aisling and I, well I can´t speak for Aisling (put-some-clothes-on-girl!) but we are dressing neither more modestly nor less modestly than the other women we see walking the streets. And no, I don´t mean STREET WALKING women!  So this is our first impression of the people of Santiago as we walk into the city.  We sped up the pace and after a further 10 minute walk found oursleves... somewhere in the city.

To be honest, it was not what I expected.  Santiago could be anywhere in the world.  It has a heavy European influence which stems from the obvious Spanish colonisation, but also from German, English and Irish settlers who came back in the 18th and 19th century.  The city is bustling and noisy but relaxed at the same time... it´s kind of hard to describe.  There is a definite feel of hustle and bustle to the place yet there is no shuving or pushing in the crowd, which is great.  We discovered a fabulous small cafe with excellent service near the German Embassy and holed up there for a small break and even better coffee. 
Duly rested, we decided to check out the bus station and see if we could find some times and prices for travel to the various places on our list of potential mini-breaks.  There are NO TIMETABLES up in this Bus Station - (what do they think people are going to do - steal them?!) so we came to the conclusion, after much walking around in vain searching for these phantom Timetables, we had to, BIG BREATH, go talk to someone - In Spanish! Imagine a similar type scene which we experienced earlier that morning, only this time taking place in the Bus Station.  Add to that our broken pidgeon Spanish.  Humiliating.   I have never felt like such an ignoramous.  Still, we managed to whittle some information out of the Bus Crew, and, armed with some times and prices we set off back into the city.

We walked around the city, absorbing the atmosphere as you do, and happened upon a large open square with a few market stalls, painters and - Oh MY! Is that a pub? Well it would be rude not to try the local beverages....  and I do need some re-hydrating....
A couple of beers later and things were starting to look rosier.   So, we don´t know what we are up to? (Big gulp of beer).  So, we don´t speak Spanish!? (Sloshing of beer).  So what that they don´t seem to speak English?  We can order beer... hiccup... just about.  And sign language goes a lo-ho-ng way!  We´ll be fine!  Dos mas Cerveza porfevveurrrr Senooooor! Gracis....gracias? Ah, look at the cuttie-wootie-old man waiter....

That evening found us huddled back up in bed for an early night - it´s the jet lag people! We had been up since like 6am.... it´s jet lag....

Day three. So today we were leaving.  Somewhere along the line last night, we decided to cross the boarder into Argentina (we had heard it was considerably cheaper than Chile and we need cheap)
and had settled on Mendoza.  Just 6 hours away and supposedly an activity hub - it seemed to fit the bill - a smallish town with activities - clearly there would be other travallers there that we could chit chat to and learn about the places to go - and not too far away so we wouldn´t be spending all our time on the bus. So we packed up and headed off to the place of an earlier scene - the Bus station - in time for the 2 o´clock bus to Mendoza. 
Getting off the Metro with our bags I nearly rammed into this middle aged woman and lost Aisling to the other side of the crowd so things were a little bit scary to start off with.  Then came the steps - I know what you are thinking (and it´s not Oh MY GOD - NOT THE STEPS!) - where is she going with this?  Just be patient.  Then came the steps.  Another middle aged woman wouldn´t move out of my way so that I could heave my bag up the steps, but rather stood there for a few minutes looking for something or someone. I realise now she was waiting for, or giving the signal.  Finally I got past her and reunited myself with Aisling, who looked equally frazzled and we moved towards the Escalators. (NO - NOT THE ESCALATORS!!) At this point I think we both thought something was going on.  Well, atleast Aisling was on to them. I on the other hand thought the woman I kept getting tangled up with was a bit ...slow.  (Yes I know, it´s me that is the slow one).  Once on the escalators we were surrounded by three women.  They stood on the same steps as us even though we waited a few moments for them to go ahead but they didn´t.  Er, hello - have you, like, heard of personal space?! Now we know why they did this.  There was one in front and one to the side of me and one to the side of Aisling.  SURROUNDED! Their hands were hidden by their cardigans (actually, they probably weren´t even their cardigans) which were draped over their arms (probably not even their arms....ok, that might even be a little farfetched) and suddenly they were in Aislings handbag, trying to get into mine and trying to open my suitcase at the same time!  Aisling shouted at your one to Stop! and the thief had the cheek to start crying! I stared hard at the one next to me (oh, yeah - that will learn her Emily, a good stare will scare her away) and clasped my hand bag tighter but this didn´t deter her. The one infront of me just stopped at the top of the escalator and didn´t walk away from the top of it LIKE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO.  I panicked, thinking there was going to be a pile up as our feet continued to move forward on the escalator but there was no room for our bodies to go into, and had a vision of poor Aisling, who was behind me, falling down the escalator backwards, overcome by the weight of her backpack.  All this in a split second as Aisling whispered to me "They are trying to pick pocket us Emily!"  "I know!" I whispered back. I mean I don´t know why we were whispering - trying to protect their feelings!? Thankfully, there was no pile up, as manners left me and I scowled (oh yes, we have upgraded from a hard stare to a scowl) and gave the woman in front of me a good shove so that Aisling could move forward off the escalator.  Somehow in all the confusion, they didn´t manage to get anything but we nearly fell, which I presume is what they would have wanted to happen to create more confusion, and were quite shaken up by the whole thing.  In the seconds after getting off the escalator we tried to gather oursleves together, get away from them asap, and check that they hadn´t got anything, which thankfully, they hadn´t.  
Unfortunately, we lost sight of where they went so couldn´t report them (imagine trying to explain that on in Spanish) and after a few more moments of checking that we really had EVERYTHING, we walked off to buy our tickets. 

Sold out. 
Well this is just typical!  The 2 o´clock bus was full, but the over night bus had 4 spaces left, so we booked on and planned how to kill our next 10 hours in Santiago.  We left our backpacks in the luggage hold area and thought about what we could do.
The cinema seemed like a good idea but I had just left my Lonely Planet in my back pack and how on earth were we going to find it in a city this big.  Lord knows we couldn´t ask peolpe for directions because, even if they understood us, when they went to reply back - we wouldn´t be able to understand them!  We left the bus station and turned a corner and  - HALLELUJAH HALLELUJAH!! there was the cinema - what are the chances?! Well, we deserved some good luck finally.  We bought tickets and settled in for an afternoon of escapism via Eragon. (Don´t bother, it´s bad).  After that, it was on to our local cafe for some coffee and cake and then onto the internet for a few hours to kill the last of the evening before our bus left.
Stepping onto the bus felt like stepping into a security blanket.  Finally we could sit down and rest, close our eyes and not worry about being robbed.  We snuggled under our blankets and said a sleepy goodbye to Santiago and a crazy few days.  Things in Mendoza couldn´t be this bad... could they?
Emily