Tour of Santiago - Monday

Woke up on Monday to a wonderful clear sunny day (I have discovered this is the norm...) and had breakfast in the buffet restaurant in the hotel. I was overwhelmed by the options (though not as good as the Regal pacific), and ended up with bacon and eggs on toast, but nowhere to sit. I ended up sharing a table with a young spanish couple, from which I escaped as soon as was possible! Then it was up to my room to get ready for the half day city tour! Alejandra (lovely lady fluent in spanish and english) took me from the hotel to the coach along with another english couple. We toured a few more hotels picking people up, then went to the meeting point with another coach where we exchanged passengers so that those on our coach were doing the city tour, and those on the other coach were heading to Vina del Mar/Valparaiso (which I was due to do on wed and what the other couple from my hotel were doing!) Alejandra then went round asking people where they were from and then got everyone to raise their hands and cheer when she read out their country - it was a good way of meeting people! we had a very multi-national group - 4 English, 4 Canadian, 2 America , 4 Australian, 1 Mexican, 2 Brazilian and 3 Argentinian!
The tour took us to Cerro (hill of) Santa Lucia where Santiago was founded and we were treated to a little drama showing what happened then, Plaza de Armas (where all the weapons were kept and now a beautiful square) where one of the english women took my picture (proof I was there!), the palace of money - where the president (first female president for Chile!) works but does not live as they live in their own residences. This place was very interesting as you can only walk through the two courtyards one way, or the guards will stop you going back, and so the palace has one entrance and one exit! The first courtyard (cannon courtyard) has wires going across the top (Chilean joke is that these are for the presidents washing!) so that a white sheet can be drawn across it for helicopters to land on. The second courtyard (orange tree courtyard) had quite a few guards in it, as the press were waiting to do a interview. many of the guards were female, and all happy to have their pictures taken, very relaxed despite the palace having been bombed during the coup. I have to admit my knowledge of Chilean politics was limited to ´there was a bad man called General Pinochet´! I know a lot more now and apparently the Chileans both admire him for saving them from the awful president they had and hate him for the atrocities he committed. It was all very interesting! Im sure we went somewhere else before the end, but it currently escapes me! So we finished at a shop called Faba, where we got given free Pisco sours - very nice! This is a lapis lazuli shop and as only Chile produces it (the only other place it exists is afghanistan but the mines are closed) it is considered to be the best souvenir from Chile as you can get woollen items in peru! It is also their national stone. I caved in and bought a tiny penguin, and determined I would buy no more souvenirs here (haha...).
We were then given the option of being taken back to our hotels or being taken to the seafood/fish market (or it could just be the general market - but I only saw seafood and fish...) for lunch. At this point I had chatted a little with the English woman who had taken my picture at the Plaza de Armas -Barbara from Norwich who is spending a week teaching research methodology at the university here. In the shop we had sidled next to the other English couple - 2 retired londoners and we agreed to go have lunch in the market together - I had crab pie (Crab meat drowned in cheese, very nice!), Barbara had squid filled with prawns and cheese, and the couple had sole. We all tried each others, all lovely and was nice to have some conversation! Barbara and I then went up San Cristobal, stunning views! Bought a few souvenirs (oh Mummy and Medina could buy thousands of wonderful earrings...). Then we slowly made our way back to my hotel, finding tons of local craft shops (resisting so many beautiful things), eating ice cream and having a nice chat! I then gave her my room number and the hotel phone number so that we could meet later in the week for a meal as we had both agreed it was lovely having someone to wander around with. Unfortunately this never happened, she had said that she was only free on wed but that the 8 Bolivian midwives she was sharing an apartment with often arranged things and she said yes without knowing what she had agreed too! her spanish was a lot better than mine, but not up to conversational standards! But it was still a lovely day...