Santiago

Arriving in Santiago was like a breath of fresh air after the terrible food and accommodation of our last three days in Bolivia. We arrived across the border into the little town of San Pedro de Atacama, a very pretty border town in the Atacama desert. We could have stayed longer but as we were keen to see some different scenery, and as San Pedro is quite touristy and expensive, we took a bus to the nearest town with an airport, went straight to the airport and jumped on the next flight to Santiago. The alternative was a 24 hour bus ride and although the flight wasn't cheap it was worth it to arrive in the city that evening.

Santiago is an excellent city. We arrived in the Bellavista district which is buzzing at night and found some accommodation in a great youth hostel called the Bellavista Hostel which is just off one of the main roads and very lively. We spent our time walking around, visiting the Plaza de Armas to send home one of our many important packages full of souvenirs and we went to the main market which is crammed with fish restaurants all vying for your custom and selling the most delicious fish imaginable. After not really eating for about 5 days this was highly exciting for us.

We decided to take a trip to the Santiago zoo which was in our neighbourhood. It is a really awesome zoo with some cool animals including a mean looking puma which stared at Alex and licked its lips...


and some cute white tigers which were my favourite:


On one of our evening strolls we climbed one of the hills surrounding the city where there were fantastic views:




We completely loved Santiago, but it was soon time to move on. We wanted to explore more of Chile on our own and the idea came to us... why not hire a car? This would give us the freedom we want to go where we want, take photos of what we want and really see the country rather than be tied down to someone else's timetable. So we did a bit of research on the internet and within a couple of hours Budget Rent a Car had dropped off a neat little 4x4 at our hostel door. Bring it on!!!