Chile - again!

I went to Santa Cruz airport to catch my flight to Santiago. I went to the check-in desk and thought I would pass by with no problems - not quite!! I handed the guy my paper ticket and he nearly had a heart attack!! He had never seen anything so big in his life and the date on the ticket was different to the date that day (I had changed the flights). He took this straight to his manager and they spent the next 20 minutes trying to figure out what to do. After a while I enquired what the problem was and they said that they were trying to figure out if they needed to charge me a fee for changing the date of my ticket. I told him this was not necessary as I was allowed to change my flights as much as I liked and did not have to pay a fee - he did not believe me!! But surprise surprise after a few phone calls it turned out I was right! So to compensate me standing at check-in for what felt like ages they upgraded me!!!!! Now this sounds a lot nicer than it actually is. The plane I was flying in is a small plane and business class in fact has the same seats as economy but has an extra 2 inches leg room instead. But hey, who am I to complain - so now I have flown business class - although it really isn´t that impressive!!

We had a stop off on the way to Santiago, which was also in Chile. Because it we were now in a new country we were all required to get off here and go through immigration. But before we were allowed to get off the flight they had to sterilise the aircraft - all very technical stuff!! A guy boarded the plane with..... bug spray!!! He then walked through the aircraft spraying it randomly - sometimes at people!! After we had completed this process we were finally allowed off the aircraft, went through immigration and then we were all back on the plane again and off we went to Santiago. I got to Santiago fine, and went to my hostel via about 5 other hostels in the city as I was on a bus which drops people off along the way so I got a good tour of the city!

I had a nice time in Santiago - for a start the weather was amazing - it certainly beats it when I was there 3 months earlier and it just rained and rained and rained. I also felt a lot safer than when I first was here. After travelling around all the other South American countries, Santiago comes across as a piece of cake, so I spent the few days I was here just chilling out!! Although for a country that has a better reputation than the other countries, they do keep their shampoo and chocolate locked away!! It is really strange. You wander around the supermarket and the only things that you have to buy separately because they are locked in cupboards is the shampoo and chocolate (not the alcohol which is by far more expensive!). So I think these must be very important goods to the Chilean people and they clearly get shoplifted a lot - very strange indeed!!

While I was in Chile I did a day trip to Valparaiso which is on the coast. It was a lovely place, but practically deserted. I discovered later that it was in fact a holiday (these South Americans seem to have holidays all the time!!). I wandered around and then went back to Santiago.

It was then time for me to leave Chile for good and catch my flight to Brazil...