Sooo, after a busride straight through the night I arrived in Santiago in the early morning last saturday. Pablo, a guy we met from Santiago in Puerto Natales had invited us to come and stay at his place. We got to the busstation around 6 AM. We decided to just hang around the city for the first few hours, as we didn´t want to wake up Pablo by coming to his place that early. We waited at a local mall for about an hour. After a while the subway was starting to run so we caught a metro to a square a few stops away. We walked to the square as apparently there happened to be an internet cafe and some cafes around.. Unfortunately once we got there they all appeared to be closed. We continued to walk with our big bags to the city center. Even there on a saturday morning things don´t start early. We walked around for a bit and finally found a cafe where we could sit and have some breakfast. After breakfast we decided to go and look for Pablo´s house. We caught the subway again and made our way to his appartment. We didn´t have too much trouble to get to his place and we found it fairly quickly.
Once arrived Pablo opened up and welcomed us to his town. It was nice to see him again. He had been out all night too, so we decided to all have a bit more sleep. After our nap we had some food and got ready for a birthday party we were going to together with Pablo. We first went to Pablo´s friend´s house. There we met all of Pablo´s friends. It was fun to meet all these locals. There was also a greek student and an american student at the party, so we weren´t the only foreign people. After a few hours we all went to a local bar for some more drinks. We danced the night away and got back to Pablo´s place in the early morning. After watching a south park episode we went to bed.
Sunday was a really lazy one. We slept most of the afternoon. At the end of the afternoon Pablo showed us a bit of the city and afterwards we went out for some food at a foodcourt in a local mall. That night we watched another south park episode and then went to bed as Pablo had to work again the next day.
The next morning we woke up around 10 AM. Pablo and his sister had already left the apartment for work. We got up, had a shower and then made our way to a hostel downtown Santiago. We checked in and then went for a wander around the city. Beforehand I asked the touristoffice what places to go and see. I walked around the city for most of the afternoon and went to see all of the touristy things around town. That night we met up again with David and Nathalie, who we had met down in Puerto Natales and Bariloche. We had some beers in the hostel and then went to bed.
The next day I heard Groove Armada was playing that night in a dome nearby. I went into town to buy some tickets for the concert. Afterwards I had a little walk around town and bought some food. That night we went to the concert with two girls from England we met in the hostel. The concert was really nice. On top of that, a guy from Santiago I met in my hostel in Buenos Aires happened to be there too. He recognized me right away and it was fun to see him again. The concert went on until 1AM. Later on a dj came in and we danced the night away again.
The next day we had to check out of our hostel because we were planning to go to Valparaiso that day. It happened to be queens day that day back at home and two dutch girls asked me to join them to the dutch embassador´s house as they were organising some kind of party there. The party happened to start at 18:30, but unfortunately the hostel we were going to stay at in Valparaiso had check-in until 21:00.. As the busride took almost 2 hours, I finally decided to skip the party and go to Valparaiso instead to do some partying over there. We arrived at our hostel in Valparaiso around 21:30. We had a little dinner and some beers. We decided to go out that night with the other people in our hostel. We went to a club called El Huevo, a 5 story club with on every story another dancefloor with another genre, really massive so to speak. We danced the night away again and we got back to the hostel in the early morning.
The next day we woke up for breakfast around 11AM. After breakfast we went to have a little sleep again as we were still tired of the night before. We finally got up around 15:00. At that time we decided to go and check out the city. We walked around the city which was really nice. We walked up a massive hill for about an hour and then found out we were going nowhere so we walked back down. That night we went out for some pizza, as it was going to be the last night me and Jannik would be traveling together, as Jannik was going back to Saniago the next day. We decided to have one beer at the club we went the night before. Unfortunately there is no such thing as 1 beer, so we ended up partying the whole full night all over again. We finally got back to the hostel around 5AM.
The next morning we woke up at 11AM again for breakfast. After breakfast Jannik packed his bag and I moved rooms in the hostel. We went to the busterminal. Jannik to go to Santiago and me to buy a busticket to Mendoza for the next morning. After saying bye to Jannik I went to a fruit and vedgetable market somewhere in town. From there I walked around the city and went to a musuem on a big hill. To get there I used a cable cart that goes up the steephill. After the musuem I walked down again and checked out some other buildings. In the late afternoon I went to the tallest elevator of Valparaiso. It turned out to be quite interesting. The lift was built in the early 1900´s. After paying the 100 Chilean pesos (€0,10) I found myself in a underground tunnel built inside of the mountain. After a small walk I reached the elevator. The elevator goes up straight through the hill all the way to the top. Once I got out of the lift I was presented with a beautiful panoramic view of the whole city. On top of that sunset was just setting in, so it couldn´t be better. Afterwards I cooked me some dinner at the hostel.
Tomorrow I have to get up early to catch my bus back to Argentina, this time to Mendoza!! More news soon from Argentina!
Apr 26th 2008 – May 2nd 2008
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