Santiago de Chile

We arrived in Santiago after a longhaul flight from Melbourne and were greeted by Hazyness and Heat. Our days here were mainly spent wandering the streets around our hostel in Lastarria and trialling all the different street foods, including the famous "completo", which is a chilean form of hotdog with different kinds of toppings. Our favourite was the "italiano" version with fresh tomatoes, avocado and mayo. Another example included a drink called "Mote con Huesillo" which is peach juice with barley grains in it. Sounds weird but turns out is acutally kind of tasty. We managed to escape the heat for a while at a lovely little outdoor pool on top of Cerro San Cristobal Hill. On our last day we found a huge fleamarket called "Persa BioBio", where you could find everything from medical supplies to art pieces. Hadleigh took the opportunity and had his old phone battery replaced by a vendor at the market. One thing we noticed in Santiago was a lot of shops and houses were hidden away behind gates and fences and it turns out this is due to some ongoing protests by the political left which have been going on since 2019 that lead to regular violent clashes with the police. Whilst this created a bit of a feeling of looming aggressions it was counteracted by all the lively street music and performances on every corner. For us Santiago was a great intro stop to Chile and provided us with the opportunity to get over our jetlag and get organized with local SIM cards, cash etc.