Santiago, Chile

Chile is a ribbon of land, over 4,300km long but only 180km wide and separated from two of its neighbours, Bolivia and Argentina, by the Andes mountains which run almost the entire length of the country. Sitting between these and the Pacific ocean, the smog caused by terrible traffic is unable to disperse, leaving a thick layer sitting above the city, thus ruining the view from our 11th floor room. A population of 6 million in Santiago makes for a very bustling city, which is a bit of a shock to the system after being in New Zealand for 3 weeks.

Also a shock to the system is that we’re now in a Spanish speaking country with only a few phrases between us. Thanks to the Get By In Spanish CD we played in the car on our long road trips in New Zealand, we can order some food, drinks, a return train ticket and get a room with a double bed, none of which works too well since we need a room with 3 beds, we want to hire a car not get a train and, on our first attempt to order pasta with cheese sauce, no meat, my meals turns up complete with ham which they deny is meat. Hmmm, we may be in trouble here. At least we know how to order vino and discover that the local Carmenère grape variety is a very nice drop.

Sunday and, being a very Catholic country, almost everything is closed and families are parading the streets in their Sunday best. Luckily, we stumble across the Chilean equivalent of Leicester Square (some may say this is distinctly unlucky) and manage to find a restaurant open for lunch (or is it dinner, we’re so confused). We’re entertained by a father and his two sons playing a one man band kind of drum, cymbal, dancing-monkey show and watch as the remains of our food are divided up. The half-eaten bread and scrambled eggs are put onto one plate which is quickly scooped up by a passing local and any untouched food is scraped onto another plate and passed to the local pensioner and her husband who sit at the side of the square selling tat to tourists. I’m all for giving away food to those less needy, but I’ve never seen it done this way before.

Before we move out of the hotel into cheaper accommodation, Will books us both a massage hoping to ease the knots in our backs and, as we play tag at the bedroom door, I’m heading downstairs with high hopes which are dashed when I’m greeted by a 60 year old with bad facial hair. It’s a bit like being massaged by your mum (except mine doesn’t have a facial hair problem) and neither relaxing nor therapeutic.

We move to the Ciudad Vittoria Hotel (www.ciudaddevitoria.cl) and, despite our language difficulties, manage to snag a suite for US$90 (although it’s sadly nothing at all to do with our Spanish and everything to do with the fact that the guy on reception speaks excellent English) complete with breakfast of bread, cake, a slice each of plastic cheese and plastic ham, half a glass of yoghurt, a glass of tinned fruit cocktail, a half-glass of juice from the tinned fruit. Don’t think I’ll be rushing to breakfast, thanks.

The Chileans have a novel approach to the issue of smoking around children. Rather than banning smoking in restaurants, they banish kids outside to sit in the cold, whilst the smokers enjoy the warmth and give each other cancer inside. Which is all very well, but it’s freezing and we’re walking the streets trying to find somewhere to feed our little cherubs. Fortunately, the waiter of the excellent Patagonia restaurant takes pity on us freezing outside and invites us to sit inside his almost-empty restaurant. A quick check reveals no smokers and we gladly peel off our layers of clothing as we take a seat. Will orders enough parma ham, salami and cheese to feed a family of ten and I order a squid ink risotto. Little did I know this would be the last decent meal I would have for some time.

We spend the next couple of days as tourists – riding the hop-on/off bus, taking the funicular and cable car up to the huge statue of the Virgin Mary which peers out over the city in much the same way as Christ the Redeemer does in Rio, and avoiding the wild dogs that are so prevalent in this part of town. We even manage to fit in a visit to the pre-Columbine art exhibition complete with mummified new-born babies.

We’re considering our travel options and, since the country is so long, momentarily consider a camper van. Take a moment to check out http://www.chile-travel.com/holiday.htm which kept me highly amused for a while. The top of the range camper vans are basically an open back truck with a box strapped on top, complete with…radio-cassette player. In the words of Jim Bowen, come and ’ave a look at what you could ’ave won. We settle for a car instead and our pidgin Spanish comes in handy almost immediately as we’ve only got enough fuel to get us 7km. Should have gone to Hertz instead of the dodgy local company who do us a deal so long as we pay in US Dollars, cash.