Sunny Santiago

I arrived in Santiago, Chile after a long LAN Chile flight from New Zealand. The flight was long and painful with the inflight entertainment on the blink and my food turning up stone cold. I caught a "transvip" mini bus from the airport to "La Chimba" hostel, the mini bus cost about 4,000 pesos (4 uk pound). It was the best way of getting from the airport and avoiding the usual touts waiting to jump on you at arrivals.

I checked into "La Chimba" in the Bellavista area of Santiago. The area is apparently quite trendy these days after being quite run down previously. It seemed like a cool area to stay with colourful buildings, great graffiti on the walls and artistic touches on the streets. La Chimba is proving to be a great hostel. How can I complain with free fast internet? The beds are comfy, it´s clean, social and the staff are friendly.

Santiago itself drew slight comparisons with Beijing for me. This was because for the first time in along time I stuck out in a crowd warranting a few stares and plenty of intrigued looks. Santiago seems to love dogs, everywhere you go a local dog will be asleep on the corner of the street. Usually they look like they are dead but they seem looked after by the local neighbourhood or stalls and nearby shops.