Santiago and the end of Tucan tour

The next day we were ready to go at 7.30am. The drive to Calamar took much longer than I was expecting. In the huge queue for Sky air where there was only one person working, the Irish people I climbed the rainbow mountain were in front of us! I had a chat to the guy who didn’t get altitude sickness in the gate lounge. He really was lovely. It was one of those situations where I felt like I should ask him to add me on Facebook, but realistically I won’t ever see him again.

The plane was absolutely tiny, and the two hour flight I had been looking forward to relaxing on was so cramped I could barely get my headphones out of my bag. It was a relief to touchdown in Santiago.

We walked to our transfer and drove into town. We mainly were driving past a river with shanty houses and rubbish on the sides. I could see Susie tensing out of the corner of my eye, she was going to be living here. But sure enough, the city started shaping around us. The Andes were visible from between the buildings and an orange haze hung over the city.

Our hotel was right on the main, busy road. We dropped our bags and went for an orientation walk around the city. First, we found out that hotdogs are a common snack in Santiago. Neil was going to take us to the seafood market for lunch, but Richella wanted to sit down, Paul wanted to eat now and two of the girls didn’t like seafood. So instead, we crammed into a little local restaurant that did burgers and chips. I had a beef burger absolutely drowning in cheap mayonnaise and avocado.

Then we saw the cathedral, seafood markets, shopping areas, tarot card areas and back to the hotel. Somehow, it was now 4pm. Susie and I went back to the room and lay like vegetables on the super comfy beds. There was no wifi in the room, so we had to go down the the second floor to use it.

We met for our last dinner together at 7.30 in the lobby. We walked to this really lovely suburb not too far with restaurants spilling out onto the street and fairy lights strung between the buildings. Neil took us to a posh restaurant that would have been trendy by Auckland’s standards. I had a really nice smoked salmon salad (I needed something fresh after lunch) and too much wine. It was his favourite wine and very drinkable! We all ended up spending about 30,000 pesos each except Richella, who only ate chips.

The end of Tucan

We went down for breakfast at 9am. Everyone was there, except Richella who had an early flight, and it felt quite sad to be saying goodbye! Paul was being very annoying and kept talking over Neil. We gave everyone a big hug, tipped Neil hilariously, then parted ways to our rooms.

Before Susie and I checked out, I went to a phone shop and bought a sim card. The nice man there barely could speak English but helped me choose a plan, buy a prepaid charge from the pharmacy next door, then installed it for me. By 11.30 we were in a taxi heading to Las Condes, Susie’s new suburb.

Joao was waiting for us. The apartment is cool, it has a 70s vibe to it and is very spacious. He took us for a walk around the suburb, to the mall, supermarket, and to a cafe called Melba for lunch. It was all themed in New Zealand pictures – so strange! The food didn’t seem NZ though.

After that he went back to work, Susie and I went to the mall for some supermarket shopping. I topped up my toiletry kit, bought them some wine and snacks. Then I cleaned my whole bag out and shamelessly used the washing machine to clean all my dusty Bolivian clothes.

Joao came home around 6pm. It is a Friday. We had the night in; red wine, cheese, Uber eats pizza (really delicious), and a movie on Netflix. Perfect for after the busy tour!

Santiago sight-seeing 

I woke up late, almost 10am! We went to find some breakfast, which involved lots of walking around in circles. Finally, we settled on a sit-down breakfast in a cake shop. I’m glad we did, because after sorting out subway cards, our first stop was the Museum of Memory and Human Rights.

This was a really in-depth look at the dictatorship in Chile during the 70s and 80s, where thousands of people ‘disappeared’ and were tortured throughout the country. We got English translation earpieces, which were very helpful.

When we left the museum it was 3pm! We had some sushi for lunch in a fancy restaurant area called Bella Vista. From there we walked up the Saint Cristobel hill to the statue of Mary. There was a big market and huge queue for the cable cars at the bottom. The walk was all uphill, but I didn’t find it too bad after being at altitude for so long.

At the statue, relaxing music played while hundreds of children sprinted around and people jostled for Instagram photos above the smoggy city. The haze cast a golden glow over the buildings and the Andes would be invisible rising sharply in the distance if it wasn’t for the shock of white snow.

We decided to get the cable car down to near the apartment, but the queue took an hour. By the time we were on it, there were twinkling lights from the city beneath us.
Dinner was at a nice Peruvian restaurant, near the apartment. I had a ceviche and two pisco sours.