#258. 12/02/05 Chile
Posted February 16, 2005, 16:21 CET
Chile! Land of tarmac roads, sushi bars and dreadlocks. I can't imagine a sharper contrast between two countries than crossing the border between Bolivia to Chile. The people here are basically European and far more "individual". Everything is more expensive (2 grand for a beer!) but, amazingly, things seem to run properly and on time.
We spent a couple of days in the laid-back northern border town of San Pedro de Atacama, mostly spent recovering from the nasty dose I picked up in Bolivia. I grew slightly worried when I released that I had just left the jungle and that most tropical diseases have "cold and flu" symptoms. But it has cleared up since, so nothing to worry about.
A mammoth 17-and-a-half hour bus journey (Chile is a long, long place) brought us about third way down the coast to the beach town of Tongoy where we seriously took it easy for a day or two, catching rays, staying in an expensive cheap hotel and eating fishy treats.
The people here speak English back when you speak what was previously perfect Spanish to them. This is both incredibly irritating (more so if you weren't an English speaker, I suppose) and quite useful, seeing as their accent is so messed up that neither of us can understand a word. It's so incomprehensible that we didn't bother even trying to talk to anyone. It reminds me of the noise you make when you stick your fingers in your ears when you don't want to hear someone.
Leaving Tongoy slightly browner, we arrived in Santiago for a brief stopover. Staying in a cheap hotel in a cheap part of town we saw mostly the grimm rundown side of Santiago, but on the whole, through the smog, it seems like a nice town of 6 million people. We spent a half day wandering through parks and markets and took a ride on the metro before leaving for Argentina.
