Andes Through the Beer Glass

We arrived in Santiago very early in the morning. Deciding against staying at the Smiling Assassin’s place, Pete found another hostel, run by an expat American, called Scott. It took us about an hour and a half to get there but it was worth it. I crashed as soon as we got in.

After a short kip, we headed on into the city and to the summit of San Cristobal Mountain where there was, apparently, a virgin. I couldn’t see one but the views over the city and out east to the Andes were stunning. We sat and had a few brewskies looking out over that awesome mountain range.

The hostel breakfast supplied by Scott was monstrous – banana pancakes and fruit salad – and during the meal I got to meet a few of the other guests. An Englishman called Ben, who seemed to sleep all day – until we discovered he had a woman hidden under the blankets, and a Dutch couple were the main stayers. The Dutchies were ripped off one night at a nearby restaurant and Scott was not impressed. He stormed down there, and we followed naturally, and got well and truly stuck in. My Spanish was steadily improving so I did catch the gist of it – I recommend your restaurant to the backpackers so I will rip your head off if you con my guests again! Something along those lines.

My dodgy knees, or Weatherknees, as we had christened them – they seemed to have a knack at predicting rain – were pretty sore from so much walking but I still managed to visit the Pre Colombian museum. This was a great little museum and worth the visit. A couple of afternoons were also spent in a British pub, The Phone Box (voted one of the best pubs in South America) where I had the misfortune to watch Arsenal beat Man U 1-0 to clinch the league title. The heady days of 1999 were well and truly behind United.