Santiago de Chile

Wednesday, 19. January

After a very spectacular cross ride through Andes I arrived in santiago de Chile. A friend of my sister, now a friend of mine, too, after 3 hours of waiting at me in the bus terminal, picked me up and we went to his home. I will spend here a few days and will try to get to Easter Island.

On my way to Chilean border I managed to see Aconcagua without clouds!

Here it is... Señorita, hermosa!

Crossing the border to Chile has never been a pleasure and it is still not, it takes so much time...

Crazy curves, one by one curva peligrosa

Thursday, 20. January

Together with Yercko we go to one of tradicional cafes. You drink you cafe standing at he bar. Another special thing is - special and riciculos - that in this sort of cafe there are no toiletts for women! baño por hombres, only! What a discrimination, I could not believe it... The other special sort of cafes are cafes con piernas, cafes with legs - where waitresses who serve coffes show much much more than legs only - they are dressed in underwear only. At a full hour they take their cloths of... Unfortunatelly a similar offer directed to feminine audience is missing, maybe it is a good idea to open here buisness like this...

Cafe Haiti. Waiteresses are serving hot coffee while walking like on catwalk.

If it is the only way to stop latin males from smoking... It does not work out. To quit smoking, I mean.

Before the breakfast I have tried terremoto (earthquake): white wine, fernet and a huge ball of pineapple ice cream. After I understood the name fully...

In Mercado Central you find: sea food and pleeenty of restaurants

Smile, you are in the candid camera!

I have found a bit of Rapa Nui in Santiago. I will not visit this time easter Island. The flights 1. were sold out and, if they were available 2. they costed more than 2000 USD dollars, and more in buisness class... so sorry, but the next time. Instead of Rapa Nui I have decided to go to Bolivia!

Plaza de Armas

Italiano - called so because of its colours: a hot dog with guacamole, crema and tomatoes

Friday, 21 January

I went for a walk to Cerro Santa Lucia - a real oasis of green in Santiago. However, they are many parks in Santiago. The viwe over Santiago is just great. I was asking myself just why in such a seismic active zone people are building so many skyscrapers... Why??? The modern are very flexible and can move a bit in case of terremoto... Walking down the hill I have heard suddenlu polish language. They were two chicas and one chico from Poland, I wanted to say something but I could not express myself properly... It was the first time that I met polish guys in the whole my 3 months travel!!! It turned out that they are from Warsaw, too, from Teatr Dramatyczny which I know very well and like, too. Great! In 2 hours they had a play, so of course I went there.

In Cerro Santa Lucia

The night of culture: great espectacolo Marylin. Persona. From Teatr Dramatyczny in Warsaw.

Saturday, 22 January

As I go to bed very very late I enjoyed on Saturday first a long sleep... Then I have visited Museo de Bellas Artes with its interesting exhibitions of contemporary arts, really great photography and some video instalations (one of which showed tango of an artist with barack Obama, really cool criticism of US... anf very funny) and went for a theatre performance of young chilenan actors. My stay in santiago is in a great contrast to one in Mendoza... here I am discovering again how cultured person I am (or maybe I can be if I want to ... ;) ).

Museo de Bellas Artes

Young chicos playing background music for a performance

In the evening I went with a friend of mine for a gala supper, since I am living in his place and he had birthday a couple days ago. We went to a spanish, not chilean restaurant with a very passionate flamenco.

Flamenco. So after I come home (whatever does it mean) I have to learn 1. tango, 2. salsa, 3. flamenco. And castellano/spanish of course, too. I can speak now pretty well, but... not in pasado...

Afterwards: salsa loca in local salsa disco...

Wall decoration in salsa local

Sunday, 23. January

Another very cultural day. First, with guys from warsaw I went to Museo Arte Precolombiano. If you should one day go to Santiago, you have to go to this museo, it is awesome! great exponats, very well presented, it was a pleasure. Afterwards we relax in Plaza Brazil, eating enormous amounts of watermelon and some other strange fruit (yellow-lila. dons ask me haw was it called).

again a bit of Easter Island feeling... next time!

All textils with complicated patterns were done with incredibile precison

Relax in Plaza Brasil

¡Disfruta frutas!

Sweet playground in Plaza Brazil

I am an important, when not crucial part of a southamerican history

In the afrernoon I went to Cerro San Cristóbal (Tapahue in local Mapuche language) with a teleferico, small steep train. I have seen this Cerro from Cerro Santa Lucia and I was very very sure that Santiago, similar to Rio de Janeiro, has an own Christo Redentor... Tja, nobody is perfect :)

View from Cerro San Cristobal. On the right you see one of the skyscrapers with a shape of mobile phone.

Wow, what a surprise!!! The Christo Redentor turned out to be Virgen Maria of in... conception (sorry I dont know this word)

Again, they were there!!!

and me too.

In the evening... dinner with Yercko and polish guys, Asia and Tomek and again crazy salsa dancing in a great local disco. Its a hard job as nobody let you just sit and gaze. Again, I have learned a lot. It has to be continued in my new place to live... My last night in Santiago.

Tommorow I go to Valparaiso and Viña de Mar in the Pacific coast to meet my friends which I first met in Ushuaia: Mayke and Wayne. And to enjoy the sea side...