Thursday 8 February
Quito to Santiago
A full day of travel from Ecuador to Chile; a long layover in Guanguil and a time change meant we arrived at Hotel Sommelier Boutique in Santiago at about 11pm.
Friday 9 February
Central Santiago feels a lot like downtown Johannesburg in the 70s/80s but more up to date.. like Joburg could be/should be today. I'm not sure how else to describe the familiar sense of the place we both had.
Santiago is not packed with tourist sites so we decided to take it easy and catch up on some travel admin that seems to pile up so quickly if you don't attend to it daily.
In Plaza Los Almas we happened upon the funeral of ex president Sébastien Pinera.
Santiago has a strange coffee culture - "Coffee with Legs." These are regular coffee bars but the serving girls are very skimpily dressed. Neil enjoyed it but on both occasions I was the only woman customer in the place!
We visited the Mercado Centrale with all the fish stalls and touristy restaurants but opted
to have lunch with the locals at a downtown snack bar.
In the evening we strolled over to the Lastarria area; full of bars and restaurants and alternative street sellers who spread there homemade goods and second hand clothes out on the pavements.
We had excellent pisco cocktails and interesting food at Chipe Libre. We were entertained for hours by our barman. It's always a good idea to sit at the bar if you want to engage with others.
The weather was so balmy, we just had to stop at Mulato for a glass of Chilean wine on the way back to the hotel.
Saturday 10 February
A slow start again doing some research for the rest of our trip. We are picking up a car tomorrow and roadtripping to Northern Patagonia with no reservations yet.. just the way we like it.
More city wanderings, more "coffee with legs" and the signature hot dog of Chile - Completos Italianos - a hotdog smothered in mayo and avo!
Tonight we ubered over to Las Vacas Gordas ( The Fat Cows ) because Neil felt like steak. Very good!
And then a glass of bubbly at Liguria to end off the evening.
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