Okay, so the more astute amongst you may be wondering why I\u00b4ve got yet another entry on my blog entitled “Tuesday 14th October”.\u00a0 Before I got my flight, and was checking my ticket, I was most confused that it showed me arriving in Santiago before I left Auckland.\u00a0 I have since asked people onboard my flight, and my parents, who confirmed that this is actually correct due to time differences.\u00a0 With my amazingly non-scientific brain I then started thinking that I could just fly around the World forever and never age or die and, I don\u00b4t know, eat a lot of rubbish food and watch a lot of very dull films whilst getting pounded in the back by the annoying passengers behind me and developing D.V.T.\u00a0 Apparently, as\u00a0I have once again been reliably informed, this would not work.\u00a0 Well other than the crap food, films, pummelling and D.V.T. bits of course.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anyway, so it\u00b4s around three in the afternoon or something, on Tuesday 14th October (again, and I\u00b4m not any younger unfortunately) and I\u00b4ve got through customs at Santiago airport.\u00a0 When I got out of the airport I was quickly approached by a very helpful man who said that he could give me a lift anywhere free of charge prior to sending me on a wild goose chase to an internet terminal that didn\u00b4t exist.\u00a0 Luckily I had borrowed the Australian couple\u00b4s \u00b4Lonely Planet\u00b4 on the plane and scribbled a few “Residenciales” (or to people like me B and B, guesthouse type places) down in my pad.\u00a0 Another helpful man approached me and called one of the numbers on my list up so that I could reserve a room.\u00a0 I informed him that I wanted to get a minibus, thinking that I would be sharing it with other people and thus splitting the cost.\u00a0 He got the first bit but seemed to not get (or not want to get) the second bit.\u00a0 So, I\u00b4m sat in a minibus, by myself, well actually with the driver, waiting for a couple of his mates who were apparently blagging lifts into the centre at my expense.\u00a0 By this point I couldn\u00b4t really be bothered to argue or try to renegotiate, and besides, they let me smoke in the van!\u00a0 So, we set off, me and three Chilean dudes who start to chat to me while their mate does his best impression of the worst kind of driving I experienced in Asia but with the added problems of the rest of the drivers seemingly wanting to obey road signs and the like and also him having a few road rage type incidents out of the window.\u00a0 One of the driver\u00b4s friends asked me if I spoke Spanish and when I replied that I didn\u00b4t he said, “Ah, impossible in Chile with no Spanish!”, which was, erm, reassuring.\u00a0 The whole way to the centre the guys were repeating, “Paris Londres”, which was on the bit of paper I had shown them.\u00a0 I wouldn\u00b4t have minded but it was almost like they were trying to convince themselves they knew where it was.\u00a0 All the while I could hear their mutterings I was trying to figure out which side of the road you were actually -meant- to drive on in Chile as the driver was certainly not making it clear.\u00a0 As I realised it was the right I scolded myself for landing in a country with absolutely no basic knowledge of it or its language.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
When we got to the centre it transpired that the repetition of, “Paris Londres”, the whole way to town hadn\u00b4t worked, or it had, but that\u00b4s not where my guesthouse was.\u00a0 After traipsing round several hotels with me in tow, one of the guys was finally told that he was in the wrong area of town.\u00a0 By this point the minibus had gone, presumably to tell more English people that they wouldn\u00b4t cope, so another taxi was called.\u00a0 At this point I started to feel slightly better at having accepted a slightly over-inflated price for my ride into town.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I eventually got to my guesthouse, and, despite having spoken to someone on the phone who spoke in fluent English, the female proprieter spoke none.\u00a0\u00a0So I stand\u00a0in reception for a while answering, “one”, to her question of, “Nombre?”, as I think that she\u00b4s asking me how many nights I want to stay, before realising that she\u00b4s actually asking what my name is.\u00a0 I manage to make out that there\u00b4s a free breakfast at some point, I\u00b4m guessing in the morning, and that checkout is at 11AM.\u00a0 Admittedly I managed to figure out the latter by looking at a sign on the wall which read, “checkout time 11AM”, rather than by using my instantly acquired Spanish skills!\u00a0 I\u00b4m eventually shown to my room which has dated decor but is simple, quaint and I like it.\u00a0 The property was like a large house with rooms around a central courtyard area and, if you can cope with the lack of English, I would recommend it:\u00a0 Santiago Centro, Paris Londres (although don\u00b4t pay too much attention to that bit – the importnat bit is next) Residencia Tabita, ph 671-5700, Principale de Gales 81.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
After checking in I found out, with comedy actions, that there was a launderette and internet cafe just down the road so went and put my clothes in, checked emails and then wandered into the centre.\u00a0 My guesthouse was about a five to ten minute walk from the main shopping area which was great.\u00a0 Both the distance and the shopping area itself actually.\u00a0 I looked around at a few camera places which all appeared to have similar models to my, broken, camera but slightly worse and older.\u00a0 I went into one large department type store where I had a silly conversation with some staff who spoke no English.\u00a0 The only things which made sense to me were that firstly they had my camera and that secondly the guy who kept touching his nose was doing a cross-cultural sign which I later discovered was a, “you may really want to blow your nose” gesture!<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I decided to ponder the camera decision and, eventually, via the palace and half of the city, found a restaurant on the way back to my guesthouse.\u00a0 I got completely confused by the menu and was despairing slightly as I was now very tired.\u00a0 Helpfully, or not, the waiter beckoned a guy over from the corner who translated the menu into a kind of English, German mix.\u00a0 Unfortunately my German is only slightly better than my non-existent Spanish.\u00a0 After a while I managed to convince them that I didn\u00b4t want half a dead cow on my plate and ended up with a rather nice potato and tomato salad with a cold Coke.\u00a0 Having filled my belly I headed back to my guesthouse where I slept horrendously soundly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Okay, so the more astute amongst you may be wondering why I\u00b4ve got yet another entry on my blog entitled “Tuesday 14th October”.\u00a0 Before I got my flight, and was checking my ticket, I was most confused that it showed me arriving in Santiago before I left Auckland.\u00a0 I have since asked people onboard my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}