Chile adventures complete: Back in Blighty!

Can’t quite believe that the 4 weeks has gone by, but then again looking back we did do loads…. ended up having a lazy last few days – nothing much to do in Punta Arenas apart from visit the penguins in Isla Magdalena, which we did on Tuesday 3rd, and by a total fluke H and I bumped into Nodoka and Chako – or rather they came flying out of Lomit’s to catch up with us walking past after an hour in the Swiss style cake/chocolate shop – on the Wednesday so we had a nice final meal, preceded by Patagonian strength pisco sours in La Luna, before leaving the south, flying back up to Santiago on the Thursday.

Santiago was hot hot hot in comparison to Patagonia, and we spent Thursday afternoon seeing the City centre sights, primarily the Museum of Pre-Columbian Art, and people-watching from a pavement cafe whilst struggling through mammoth ice cream sundaes…..

On Friday we headed out to the craftshop village of Pomaire (where I bought a Pomaire Piggy bank each for Barney and Rosa – the type you have to smash to extract your pennies), and returned to Santiago to take the funicular up Cerro San Cristobal where we sat in the shade and wrote post-cum-Christmas cards to all and sundry. For our final dinner we took the metro to Providencia and ate in “Santiago’s best veggie restaurant” (Rough Guide) – La Huerta – I had Thai green curry…… not an egg or an omelette in sight.

Saturday, we mooched around the City centre again for a couple of hours in the morning, before many people were up and about, taking in the Plaza de Armas, the Post Office, the Cathedral, La Moneda and the Central Market (cast iron structure made in Birmingham at the end of the 19th century and shipped out to Chile) before returning to the Youth Hostel in Los Heroes. Of all the places we stayed in during the month, this is the only one I’d actively discourage people from going to – rude staff and inexcusably shabby accommodation; relatively expensive too.

Long flight home, involving 5 hour stop over in Sao Paulo where I got my one and only mozzie bite (b*****d), but it was worth it all to see Phil waiting for me at LHR….. and he’d got flowers, lunch and home made mince pies waiting for me when we got back to CJ. Lovely.

So now it’s just a question of getting back up to speed with things at work, and sorting out the 500 odd photos on my digital camera….

Related….
Chile photos finished

New World Hostal, Ancud
Four seasons in five days in Torres del Paine
Snow at the border….
Drying off and warming up in Chile

Chile Weather – 2 weeks to go…
Chile Planning
Chile weather
Chile mind maps
Hazel’s in Huancayo, Peru
Chile – the countdown commences…
Chile Confirmed
I’ve got four weeks holiday…

December 2012: Following Fotopic’s demise, I’ve uploaded the photos onto Flickr – Chile November – December 2003