As you can see from the lovely flag in the background, we´ve finally arrived in Chile after a lengthy journey south from Arequipa in Peru. It took 42 hours by bus. Between the ridiculous amount of time stuck on a bus and the constant customs checks from the paranoid Chileans (you cannot take any fresh food into Chile, but there is no chance that you could given how much they check you) we were knackered. One check was a very rude poke in the arm to wake us up and get off the bus in the middle of the night. Chile had not put itself in a great light.....But after a good nights sleep in a cold but comfy bed in Hostel La Chimba, it wasn´t so bad. In fact, as per usual with us we love Santiago, when everyone else said it was rubbish. How can a city with a view like the below be rubbish? There´s not a whole lotta places where you can see massive snow capped mountains from the city streets!!! It has a quiet and relaxed vibe despite being very big. We stayed in the lovely arty Barrio Bellavista. It is full of crazy old tumbledown houses and nice bars and restaurants. Good enough for us!
Ed just had to get a pic of the classic scooter above. Apparently it´d be worth a lot of money back home coz its quite rare. It looks like a pile of junk to me!
There isn´t tons to do in Santiago, but there are lovely parks and plenty of museums. We went up to the top of the Cerro San Cristobal, but no trekking! Thankfully there is a funicular railway up. The unique thing is that they have 2 mountains right in the city centre. Cerro San Cristobal houses a huge statue of the Virgin Mary and an open air church that overlooks the whole city. The Pope JP said mass up there once, apparently.
The sunset up there was amazing. Santiago is very smoggy so the sunsets are really pink and hazy.
They are madly into graffiti here too, in the same way we saw in Buenos Aires, loads of stencil stuff. 
This one is kinda in contrast to the nice peace and love stuff above. It says, nothing is free.
That´s not quite true. We had a very nice free wine tasting night in our hostel. We got completely trolleyed for nothing!
This was my personal favourite.
"Less is more". Short people of the world unite! And, yes I am wearing socks with pumps.
It´s bloody freezing!
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