Next it was up over the andes (leaving shane behind in mendoza where he was going to meet a friend coming over from ireland) and crossing into chile in a border crossing high in the andes called Los Liberatodores which was up a quite a height around 3000 metres or so and then a desent down into santiago - there was some amazing views as we went through the andes.
Arrived in santiago on the saturday afternoon/evening and have to admit I was not impressed at all - its a smoggy (i mean really smoggy) dirty city where the locals are not very friendly and some like to give crap to gringos (as they called us) - Also there is not much to do for tourists in this city except for nightlife which was just ok - it seemed like a totally different country to southern chile (but i guess capital cities can be a bit harsher) There was one nice hill kinda park in the centre where you could get a good view of the city but all you can see was smog and high rise buildings
An informative point about santiago is that its the capital of a prosperous country and that recently I heard that chile is now considered south america's first "first world country" - but i don't know what the criteria for that is (it has alot of fast food places and has a big shopping culture - oh yeah and there is alot of teen angst kids)
On the plus side the hostel we stayed in was top notch and we bumped into a few travellers we'd met in other places there which was good craic.
Also i know that there is probably nice areas in the city we didn't explore and that if you give the place a chance you might find it's good side but we didn't stay long and headed south to a beach town called pichilemu.
Pichilemu is a very small town about 3 hours south of santiago on the coast - its known for its surfing beaches and thats what we went there for - I dragged the lads down to this small town which was a refreshing relaxing change after the big city of santiago - we stayed in a chilled out hostel and went surfing on the monday although conditions weren't great to be honest but we where determined to go in seen as we had travelled down. The next two days the conditions got worse and it would have been pointless to go surfing - also the town and all of central chile was subjected to a storm and i think there was fatalities or casualties (couldn't make out the spanish headlines on the tv news completely) in central santiago as a result - but luckily we had the champions league final to watch (which was a lose lose situation for me as a liverpool fan) but have to admit was a cracking game. And the two lads are united fans so they where delighted.
Pichilemu is quiet town and it was refreshing the few days spent there although was disappointed not to get more surfing in but hopefully will get a surf in peru and waters will be warmer there anyways.
