Feliz Dia del Papa

So today we leave Santiago having spent father's day wandering the street markets.

Having been told not to expect much from Santiago, I have been pleasantly surprised. The people seem friendly (except for the man from LAN at the airport) and we've had a pretty good time! The weather was good yesterday so that helped too.

It's been one of those classics where your accomodation is so rough that you go out and about just to not be in your room (which smells of a combination of damp, bleach, stinky feet and the various things we've been trying to cover the smell with). Furnished, in this case, means that there is a bed in the room and in spite of booking ahead, they still didn't seem to be expecting us so we appear to have received the worst mattress in the world. In fact it might have been better on the floor but for the damp - no roll together.

The shower is a work of patience, you have to turn the hot tap approximately half way and leave it to run for 5-10 minutes for the "24 hr hot water" to appear. The art of mixing is best left to aspiring DJ's so my shower consisted of either boiling hot or freezing cold alternately every 3-4 minutes. Apparently you do get used to it... I'd just rather smell, at least it covers the bedroom stench! One of the hostel workers kindly informs me that ths is his preferred method - eeewwwww yuk!

Father's day certainly seems to be a treat here. There were Oohmpah bands (the local police force) and all variety of street entertainers including a family of one man drummers, you knoiw the ones where they flick their legs and it crashes the cymbals, with a big drum on their backs. To add to their show, they have a habit of spinning furiously. The youngest member (all of about 5 yrs) put on the best show however when he did a strip tease in front of a teenage girl. You could see the jealously in his older brothers' faces!

The museums were pretty cool too. We visited 2: the Pre-Colombian art which has a great gold exhibition and one we stumbled across whilst walking home, combined Art and Archaeology.

Soo we're off to Arica now, 30 hours by bus, where we'll spend the night and head over the border into Peru on the 22nd for another 20 hours to Cusco... At least it's warm in Arica eh?

Ciao!

J & S XXX