Santiago

Moved hotels last night, and am now in Las Condes area of Provedincia (thanks for the advice, Morten!) There’s a lot of nightlife up there as I discovered when cruising around a few bars until about 3am. Today was gorgeous T-shirt weather, and I went up the funicular railway that leads to yet another Christ statue thing on top of a big hill. Not anywhere as well presented as the Corcovado in Rio de Janeiro, as it’s surrounded by aerial masts and stuff, but you get a really good bird’s-eye view of things from there. There’s a disgusting thick layer of pollution hovering all over the city which is somewhat alarming, to know that I am now breathing that in. From the top, a gondola cable car thing leads down the other side across quite an impressive park. It leads through a lot of trees, but they don’t bother to trim them much it seems, so the car ploughs into branches as you go along which makes it very safe, obviously…

Tomorrow I think I will try to get to Valparaiso on the coast, my flight only leaves at 23:30 or something so I think I can do this and still get back in time to catch the flight. As long as I don’t have another 3am session tonight which is always possible…! If I get to the airport in time I might have time to watch TV, as I did in Manaus airport, another classic that slipped my mind. Whilst waiting at the gate they were showing the Discovery channel about an air crash investigation, then as we filed through the door, right under the TV, they showed the reconstruction of the two planes crashing head on, I kid you not…