Day 1 Santiago Chile

Ok so after a great experience in the Auckland airport we started our journey to Santiago at 5.30pm yesterday. It was a pretty long flight, with semi-descent food. Both Anto and I couldnt really sleep that well so we ended up watching 3 movies. In the morning we listened to some latin american music to get us in the mood of South America.

We landed in Santiago international airport at around 1.15pm today. Knowing my luck I was a bit anxious, walking towards the immigration to get my arrival stamp. But this time everything went smoothly. Got out pretty quickly.This time Anto took longer than I did.

With the help of our latin american phrase book Anto organised transport for us to get our hostel with a non english speaking lady at the counter.

After getting dropped at the hostel when we went to check in, the sweet lady offered us a room that had a private bathroom but asked us to checkin a little later as our room wasnt ready.We went for a walk around the block and decided to have lunch at this little place near our hostel.

The food wasnt great but the service from our waiter Alberto was great.He also directed Anto to a gym which was next door as Anto has to continue to be Ripped for Rio.

After lunch we went to buy some things that we need from a little convenience store, the phrase book came in handy here. Anto did go a bit far by trying to look for the right pronunciation for ´banana´ which was ´banana´.

We then went to this gym suggessted by Alberto to see the pricing and the availabilty, etc. The $20.00 phrasebook was useless at the gym, as it didnt have the questions we wanted to ask and when did ask the questions we didnt understand the responses from the lady.I have seen foreigners bargaining in Colaba, Mumbai by writing and communicating with sellers, I used think that it was so funny. I was doing the same thing today, it was an experience.I hope I will get better at communicating like that as we progress through the trip.

We took a nap and Anto went to the gym after. He enjoyed it.I wanted to go but was too tired.

I had great nap and when Anto came back we went out for dinner. On our way out of Bellavista we met this guy Ivan from Colombia. He was in our flight aswell. He was living in Australia for the last 11 months. 3 of us went out for dinner and had empanada which is a pastry stuffed with meat.
We were pretty surprised by the number of people were out on a tuesday night. And a lot of them didnt seem to be tourists. The street we were on felt like we were on Chapel Street on a thursday night.Bellavista definitely has a pulse.
Thanks to Wesley for the recommendation.

Buenos noches !!