Santiago day 2

Day two in santiago began with a familiar situation to home, me going out for a morning run and Harsh sleeping in. Not surprisingly the city was like a ghost town at 8.30 am, must be all that mid week partying.

After a mediocre breakfast, buns and blueberry jam, myself, Harsh and our new columbian friend Ivan decided to venture into the city of santiago on foot armed with a map and the lonelyplanet. We had in mind seeing the various plaza´s finding the central market which was highly recommended by a friend of Ivan´s and another local lady who scammed me for 350 pesos the day before. Okay doen´t be distressed that´s the equivalent of $1aud.

Well I must say we were impressed with the Plaza de Armas and Santiago´s infrustructure. The highlights were climbing Santa lucia hill in the middle of the city and seeing the city in panarama and a snow capped mountain, also stumbling on Santiago de Compostela Cathedral. Harsh rates this as the best church she has ever seen, I tend to agree with her it was majestic and showed off all the wealth of the church with elaborate architecture and art work. Yes I admit it was even more impressive than St Mary´s Bambalapitiya, only just.

Well all the sight seeing was making us hungry so off we went in search of the central market. Walking, walking walking, there it was finally in a dodgey area of town. Not a sign of a single gringo, at last we thought we were going to sample some latin american delicousies. However much to our dismay the market was nothing more than a much dirty version of Vicmarket minus any cooked food. Yes only produce, scammed again. Damn our stomachs were by now screaming, however Shetty was suprisingly subdued and well behaved, must have been due to the presence of Ivan the columbian casanova. We eventually settle for a small cafe near bellavista, nothing special, dodgy salmon and average Lomo(steak) but the cafe was responsible for giving us our first taste of Pisco sour. I can feel the heart burn just writing about it. In fact Pisco sour was the hit of the day and night, my self and harsh polished of a few more in the evening although it was much harder to order without the assistance of Ivan´s spanish who had slept in from 5pm till 11.
Never the the less the both of us along with the lonely planet phrasebook had a great night in our new spot bellavista amidst the Fireeaters, Drummers and one man band. Well we better go to bed now we have an early start tommorrow... a trip to Vina delmar and valporiso.

PS there will be alot of spelling mistakes in this as my Word spell check only checks for spanish.