22/2 Santiago .... here we come

Wednesday 22 February to Santiago

Early start and all day drive arriving 6pm. We seemed to be driving up a broad flat valley on a very good 2 lane highway. There was a lot of relatively intensive farming going on – good maize crops, cattle, forests etc. Nearing Santiago, there was a lot of container transport and industrial areas. It felt like we were driving along a stretch of road like you would see between Northam & Perth on Gt Eastern Hwy.  Nice hills, small towns with associated country style businesses.   It was a pretty laid back day and we had a pleasant half hour for morning coffee at a truck park and a good lunch next to a river.  The surprise of the day was snow on distant mountains.  The day has got considerably warmer as we have moved northwards and we spent the day peeling off the layers until we are now back in shorts and t-shirts wishing it was just a little cooler.

Santiago is situated within a rim of very large mountains, contains 1/3 of Chiles population and is just an hour from the coast in one direction and an hour from the ski fields in the other direction.  Very nice positioning for a capital city.

Oasis are a pretty weird organization and one of the strange things they do is to charge MORE if you book 2 legs at the same time rather than to pay for them separately. Which is a bit theoretical anyway, because they refuse to sell you the individual components together. In brief, it was about $1500 per leg but $3200 if you want 2 – go figure that out? The marketing manager at the time told us it was because of the extra 2 days in Santiago between the legs. So we were keen to see the hostel that was worth an extra $400 for 2 people.

A very beautiful old building with large spacious rooms, but there were 8 of us in one room, accessed through another room with 8 beds. With the several other rooms on the floor, we share 2 male and 2 female toilets and showers, which are pretty weak. No breakfast. Just to complete the nonsense, the extra money doesn’t go into the local payment that is used for food and accommodation anyway – it goes to England. Oddly, we would still recommend Oasis anyway, but be prepared to pay extra for room upgrades and put up with some minor irritations. The basic price is very cheap and the crew are good.

Grande staircase

Dining room - all original - vaulted ceilings

Ceiling cornice detail above - tv room below

Our bedroom ceiling detail - beautiful

There is a sushi restaurant next door named Platipus(sic) and we happily trailed in there for dinner. Dan the Sax was there already, beaming at a silver tray HEAPED with sushi. About $22 worth. Several different types, all beautifully prepared and very fresh. Interestingly, some of them were inside out, with crunchy chicken tempura wrapped in avocado, and rice patties wrapped in salmon fillets. We bought the same and shared it.

The hostel has a reputation as Party HQ but we were in bed asleep early on and the revellers did not get home until 5am. The floorboards creak appallingly but we hardly noticed.