Santiago

Alas, time to commence the journey back home. The first stage consisted of an overnight bus from Pucon to the capitol Santiago. It arrived at 7:30AM, and since the flight from Santiago to LA only left in the evening we had a day to spend in Santiago itself. Sandwiched between bus and plane rides and hampered by sleep deprivation we didn't really get much of an impression of Santiago, regrettably. Getting the runaround at the airport for a few hours when we discovered that our flight had been cancelled and that the airline was forgetting the first chapters out of its Customer Service handbook did not help either. Good thing we went to the airport first thing in the morning, so we found this out 12 hours ahead of time. Had we simply showed up 2 hours before the flight, we would have gotten delayed by at least a day.

Of course Santiago has the inevitable Plaza de Armas with architecture and all that, but the authentic flavour that I found much more interesting was the genuine political demonstration that came by.



Following right on its heels was a parade of Chilean Inca tribes displaying their pre-war dance ritual. Behold, the last thing I saw in South America 2008: