We have successfully arrived in Santiago, Chile. We are staying at Aji Hostel and I like it a lot. We arrived really early, after a miserable bus ride. Note: if ever going to cross from Mendoza to Santiago, do it during the day!! It is a long windy road that is a bunch of SSSS back and forth. You wont be able to sleep, but more importantly its a beautiful passageway that we totally missed. You cross through the Andes and it probably was gorgeous. We arrived exhausted around 5:30 or 6 am and navigated the way to the hostel. When the receptionist let us in, she actually showed us to our beds. YES!! Even though check in is not until 12 pm, we got to snooze all morning in fantastic, comfy beds. These beds are probably the best so far. The hostel isnt super clean, but the only one that has been was the brand new one we stayed at in Montivedeo. Love it here. BBQ tonight, hopefully will be fun.
We were able to see a lot of things in a short time in Santiago. Its an extremely walkable city. There are lots of pedestrian only streets, which is great. Its also very safe here. We went to the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, which is a musuem of artifacts from the indengious peoples of South and Central America. It was pretty cool and free with my expried student ID, awesome. All of the information was translated perfectly to English, even in their special exhibit. Best museo so far.
We also went to the Museo Historico Nacional. Ha. All in español, so that was sort of a waste, but again I got the student rate of like 45 US cents, so we walked through and learned nothing. Oh well. And to make it a good trifecta, we went to the art musuem too. This one happened to be free on Thursday, but was sort of average overall.
We enjoyed a crazy dinner at a place called the Patagonia Cafe. We went all out (we dont always act like backpackers anyway) and got the big monster dinner. We sampled wild boar, deer, deer sausage with roasted veggies and Chilian red wine. Yummy!!
Now its off to Patagonia and some trekking!!
I'm really sorry you are unable to understand so much in some of these museums--you could probably learn so much about how each nation constructs its own history. You need to make friends with locals who can act as your translators--bet you would really get the inside (read: non authorized) scoop then. Do you get private rooms in these hostels, or have you had to share with strangers sometimes?
ReplyDelete