After throwing a coin into the fountain at Santa Lucia and making a wish, our luck seemed to have turned.

  Luck number One.   The next morning we walked to Santa Maria clinic which was a block away from where we were staying.  Let me tell you here, we have moved a lot in the last few weeks, being high season here, everywhere is booked out.  So, we walked into this clean modern and, actually, very fancy clinic, where everyone went out of their way to help us.  They even called the specialist on his cell phone and asked if he could squeeze me in without an appointment.  An hour later, we are sitting across from this specialist who spoke perfect English and loved the Irish, he looked at my xrays, explained everything and had wonderful bedside manner.  Where exactly were we on New Years Eve??  And yet again, Santiago, the city of love, shone through when each doctor or nurse who came on or went off duty spent the time going around kissing and hugging all fellow employees that were in sight.  It was bizarre to watch and at the same time really heartwarming.

So anyway, he took the cast off, ordered more xrays, a CT scan of my hand and basically told me my elbow had a stable fracture, hand was still in one piece, and now I needed to start exercising to regain full extension in my elbow.  3 hours and $400 later and we walked out, I was finally in a comfortable sling, with a brace on my hand, given strong painkillers and was feeling pretty relieved that this wasn’t going to be the be all and end all of our trip.  The last 10 days were a real eye opener, only able to use one hand is pretty exhausting.   Greg was my godsend. He was always there to help me open bottles, tie my hair up, carry bags, be my left hand for supporting my camera,  help me to shower and to dress.  I guess putting a bra back ON was never something a man needed to, nor wanted to, know how to do.  

A call to Greg’s Auntie, who is a physio, gave me strict exercise instructions (thanks again Helena) that will hopefully have me speeding down the road to recovery.

Luck Number 2. The next morning I got a work email to book my first Australian wedding.  Another relief.

Luck Number 3. That afternoon we went back to Hostel Del Barrio, where we had previously spent a few nights in.  The owner Christian, a German expat, said he may know someone to help us find a car.  So we met Arturo at the hostel and it turned out he had a 1990 Isuzu Trooper 4X4 for sale. He is a tour guide and has a company Expedicion Sur de Chile (little name dropping here).   He had 2 troopers for tours and we thought if he used troopers for his 4x4 excursions, it must be a pretty sturdy car.  A little older than we were hoping, but the mileage was good and everything seemed in good condition.  Arturo didn’t seem like the type of guy to screw gringos over.  We just needed to fix the air con, as we have been keeping an eye on weather ahead in Argentina and Brazil and it is over 100 degrees, so it will be needed.  So we slept on it, said yes to the car, and the next day Arturo took us to mechanic town to fix the car.   Literally a neighborhood made up of mechanics and spare parts.  We would have been lost without Arturo and this was something that was going to become common over the next week.   

The next day we picked up the car, air con blasted out – perfecto.  Arturo and his girlfriend, Claudia, took us to a bar to feast on some of Chileans finest traditional chow.  First up was a drink called the Michelada, an acquired taste, which consisted of:
Porter beer
Lemon juice
Tabasco sauce
Chili flakes to taste
And enough salt to kill you. 

Arturo and Claudia threw theirs back, like they had been stuck in the desert for days.  Greg and I sipped ours a little slower, trying to let the taste grow on us, it didn’t.  So we switched to draft beer, with no trimmings.   Next up was a chorrillana, which was a tower of French fries, topped with chicken, beef and shrimp, topped with fried onion and finally a fried egg.  It was delicious, heart attack worthy, but delicious.

Being the weekend, we couldn’t officially buy the car until Monday.  Now we had to start stocking up on supplies for the trip and to find tools to convert the car so we could sleep in it.  Greg and I headed off to the BioBio market, which was insane!  It had hundreds of stalls that sold everything, except what we needed.  A few stalls were specialized and trying to target one market – like a stall of screws or of stolen electronic goods or my personal favorite a stall with hundreds of dog leashes with stray dogs hanging around just waiting for someone to take them home.  But the majority of them were selling a mix match of whatever they could find to sell. One stall consisted of dentist tools, a few hubcaps, a machete, a Justin Bieber poster, a rubrics cube, army uniform, a cage with a few rabbits, Mr potato heads, porn, an antique telephone, a few pairs of socks, marshmallows and a Cinderella costume.  You think you go to target or walmart and come back with a bunch of things you didn’t need.  Can you image doing your shopping here?! We didn’t know which way to look.  Now, how were we supposed to find what we were looking for in a maze of this?  It could take days.  So we checked off knives and forks, some bolts, and a notepad off our list and left before I could buy a puppy for the trip.  

Greg and Arturo spent the next 24 hours working hard on the car.  Not too many people who sell you a car would be too willing to drive you all over the city to buy parts and then spend days helping to build a platform bed so you can live in the car.  Arturo is a one of a kind, kinda guy- or so we thought. Christian kindly let us work at the hostel, using his tools and making a lot of noise, despite the fact that we had checked out due to the hostel being fully booked. (Thank you again for your hospitality!) So as they sweated in the sun, designing, sawing and drilling our bed, I started to figure out a route of where we wanted to go.  7 hours went by, and they had created a sturdy platform with three storage compartments underneath, that slid into the car perfectly.  Without stopping to refuel on food, they changed the suspension, fixed a table to the back gate and had a beer to celebrate.  It was now 11pm and they were exhausted. Arturo still had to drive to the airport at 1.30am to pick up a tour of Brazilians.  How he was standing at 8.30am the next day, I don’t know.  The boys went off to do the paper work first thing in the morning, while I guarded the millions of pesos in cash in our room.   A few hours later we were the proud owners of Rojelio (the trooper), Arturo of another trooper and it was Christans’ hostels 2nd birthday, so there was lots to celebrate. A bbq and a few beers was about all we could manage.

The next few days, we spent picking up supplies.  Arturo, again, coming to our rescue, took us to leave the car at the mechanics, a mechanic that he knew, for a check over, new filters, brake pads, and other tweaks (added to our lack of medical Spanish terms, is mechanical Spanish terms).  And then drove us from place to place to pick up a cooker, fridge, a custom sized mattress, jerry cans, etc.  We sorted insurance, made curtains for the car, picked up a mobile phone and were ready to get on the road.  A few delays at the mechanics, the Chilean way of manana manana, caused a few extra nights in Santiago than we had wanted.  In nearly four weeks we feel like we have gotten to know Santiago pretty well.  We have stayed in 8 hostels, b&b’s and apartments, lived in 3 different neighborhoods, experienced the hospitals (the good and bad), police stations and Chilean “FBI” (don’t worry, no arrests) experienced our first earthquake and seen walls of graffiti transform from one work of art to another.  I think it is safe to say we came, we saw and we are ready to move on to quieter pastures.

 

Saturday morning came, we packed up the car, who still needed a new motor for the window wipers, but we just wanted to get on.  Our gps decided to freeze on us, not allowing us to upload our Chile or Argentina map, but we were determined to let noting stop us from hitting the road.  After a quick goodbye to Arturo, Claudia and Christian we were on the road, Finally!
It was about 20 minutes into the drive that our lucky streak came to an abrupt hault.  
As Greg was teaching me some past and present tense in Spanish, steam and water started spewing out of the hood in its best old faithful geyser impersonation.  What the f**K! Greg lifted the hood and boiling brown water spat out at him, burning his face and arm, missing his eyes by about half an inch.  We were no longer the same two happy, go lucky, people we were that morning.  After pulling out the first aid kit and trying it treat his burns, we were joined by highway assistance to help with the car. The guy poured some more water into the radiator and we were on our way.  5 minutes later, as if on old faithful’s schedule, the geyser kicked off again.  We were beyond angry and frustrated, there were many swear words, in both English and Spanish coming out of our mouths.  We had left the car into the mechanics for 2 days for a “thorough check over” and what we got back was a car whose engine was overheating.  The 3rd time we pulled over, after 2-3 hours sitting at the side of the road, a guy selling soda across the highway called the emergency highway patrol for us and we were towed to the next town.  It is about now that I would like to send a big Thank you out to Arturo, it sure seems to us like he is the kinda guy to screw two gringos over - only time will tell for sure.  I think it’s safe to say, we found the reason that he was selling the car.  (side note to Tim and Steph- told ya!) and it has certainly made us lose a little faith in humanity.

So there we were at a mechanics in a tiny town that quite frankly had me holding on to our pepper spray for dear life.  There were drunk bums hanging around our car that just sat and stared at us gringos, with glazed over eyes, for the first 20 mins.  The mechanic began yelling at us, yes, if you scream it at us, suddenly I will understand what you are saying.  All we could understand is there is “no problem”.  Mmmm, so why can we only drive 5km before our car looks like it’s going to explode.  Once Greg told the mechanic that we were “Australian”, his mood seemed to change and soon we had everyone around our hood – the bums, kids, grandparents all trying to lend a hand  (pepper spray wasn’t needed in the end).  So they emptied the radiator, filled it with new coolant, we paid more money and he said we were good to go. 

It was now 7.30pm and we still had to climb the Andes, with 1 hour of sunlight left, that wasn’t going to happen.  So we pulled over and spent our first night on the road at a luxurious gas station, parked alongside all the truckers.   It was a long and frustrating day and this was not the start that we were hoping for.   The morning came quickly but we had had new hopes today.  We headed off over the Andes in slow mo, like 15miles an hour slow mo.  We only have 3 more months to cover 5 countries, and at this rate, we would be lucky to make it to Patagonia.  Switch back after switch back, and numerous stops to let the engine cool, refill with coolant and we were up and over the towering mountains and at the border.   The scenery was breathtaking, although we couldn’t look up for too long, our eyes were glued to the temperature gauges and oil pressure for the majority of the drive.  1st border crossing went pretty smoothly, and we were even given a hand from an official to suck gas out of the jerry can and into our fuel tank, as you are not allowed to carry excess fuel across the border –border crossing lesson number 1.  Can you imagine a US border patrol officer offering to help and get covered in gasolina? I think not.  Rain clouds were threating above and not having any window wipers could make for another very long day. So taking the drive very slowly but as quickly as possible, we made it to Mendoza.  A 6 hour drive turned into 28 hours.  Next on the agenda was to look for a campsite(not easy without a working gps or a map), but first we needed to pulled over for our routine cool down and coolant top up.  Next thing, a car pulled over to help.  Within 3 minutes Osvaldo told us we didn’t need a campsite and could park our car for the night at his house. We were so grateful for his kindness to just welcome strangers into his home.  And a beautiful home at that, built solely on his own, surrounded by olive trees and deep in the Argentinian countryside.  One word, tranquilo!  After a few hours of chilling on his patio drinking mate tea, having interesting discussions about politics in Spanish (again political Spanish falls in the same category as our medical and mechanical spanish), we went off to buy some steak for dinner.  The malbec was flowing, and steaks were grilling on a rustic open fire, after the last day or so, we were feeling very lucky to have met such a warm and welcoming local. Osvaldo cooked us up the most delicious meal we have had since being here, and I would go as far to say the best steak I have ever had, ever!  Favorite night of the trip yet! 

The next morning after breakfast of bread and his home harvested honey, Osvaldo took us to help us find a new motor for the windscreen wipers.  He came across his son-in-law, Hans, who is from Belgium and jumped right on board to help us out.  We drove to a couple of places with no success of a new motor.  With siesta time nearing (which is 3-4 hours long here), we spilt up.  Osvaldo offered to go and buy us a new wiper motor while we went to a mechanic to finally sort out our engine.  As soon as Hans explained what was going on to the mechanic, he said he  was pretty sure of the problem.  The 1st mechanic who actually knew what he was doing and told it to us straight, we had a big, big problem.  Finally a trustworthy mechanic! We were no longer in Chile, and it was no longer the Chilean way of-  we will get it to work for now, but the problem won’t be solved and it will screw you over again in a day or so.  He was actually going to try and help us to get the car ready to make and survive the trip that we had ahead of us.  But it could take a week.  Hans and Mario (mechanic) drove us from place to place to find us an available hotel. Close to tears, Greg and I unpacked the car, that we had so carefully packed up just 2 days ago, and wished it a speedy recovery.  We were gutted that our trip had stalled yet again and felt very cheated.  But we keep telling ourselves, everything happens for a reason.  On the bright side, we had made it here in one piece, which was surprising to most, we were at least stuck in a place that was surrounded by vineyards and we have been overwhelmed by such outstanding hospitality and generosity of every Argentinian we have met.  Everyone has gone out of their way to drive us places, cook for us, translate for us, and help us drown our sorrows.  If this is a sign of things to come in Argentina, we are going to love it here.  And if our car doesn’t live to see another day, we may just stay here.   

After a few visits to the wineries, we moved to a charming lodge- TikayKilla, in the countryside, to relax.  Francisco, the owner, has been amazing, helping us in every way that he can and has been looking after us so well.  This morning we received the prognosis of our car.  It is not good.  We have been advised to tow the car back to Santiago, back to Arturo and get our money back.  2 months after selling our home, we still haven’t seemed to have started our trip yet.  Broken arm, broken engine, broken banks and broken hearts.

After our first month of travelling in relative safety and normality in Australia and New Zealand we were both ready to venture into the unknown of South America.  Our first destination is Santiago, Chile where our main focus was to first bring in the new year with a bang and then organize buying a car to be our home for the remainder of our travels.

                Our point of arrival into this huge city was the Hostal Plaza de Armas.  This hostal is a converted apartment that in its heyday I could only imagine this would’ve been the place to live in the city.  The penthouse apartment has a balcony overlooking the picturesque plaza de armas.  The first thing we noticed in the plaza were the numerous couples just going at it with reckless abandoned.  We thought we landed on lover’s lane or something.  Apparently we would learn that this would be a common theme in Santiago.  Here’s an example: packed restaurant, tables on top of each other, food getting cold on the tables, guy and gal making out like it’s their final meal together before he ships out to a certain death at war only to come up for air long enough to take a few drags of their cigarettes before diving back in.  Our first thought of Sanitago is, it’s clean but smokey, the people are lovely but horny and the most popular pet dogs, among the thousands of strays, are pugs and beagles.  Maybe that is our money maker, introducing the puggle to Santiago.

Jetlag was a major nuisance throughout our first few days in Chile as we couldn’t sleep past 6 am and then crashed hard for an extended siesta around midday.  We could easily see why siestas are such a part of the culture in Latin America as the heat makes you not want to go outside and just sleep in the shade.  Speaking of which, the 10 day forecast just does not change here: 90 degrees and sunny, every day.  Once we got over the jetlag, our first item on our “to do list” was to acquire a RUT Number.  We knew this was the first thing we had to do to in order to buy a car since all the blogs and literature we read on the topic said so.  The major problem with this is that we had no idea what a RUT Number was or how one goes about acquiring one.  No problem, we’ll just ask the employees at our hostel, they should know.  One after the other the response was similar: “Que?”  Brilliant.  Some more research had us seeking out the “Servicio de Impuestos Internos” (Chilean IRS).  When we finally found the right office , third attempt, we were kindly informed by the information desk to go around the side of the building to the other entrance.  We knew this only because he was and expert at charades as he spoke zero English.  It is at this time that I would like to impress upon everyone reading this that without at least minimal conversational Spanish, there is no chance that you would be able get by in Santiago.  Most of our conversations begin with “Hablas ingles?” and every time the response is simply “No”.  I would take this opportunity to thank Senora Naughton for those three years of Spanish that somehow stuck with me and now allow me to at least formulate coherent sentences in order to get by here.

                Back to the SII.  So we entered the building and saw a big sign simply labeled “RUT”…we have arrived.  After struggling to understand the new information desk woman, we did as we were told and grabbed a number as if we were waiting to order some smoked turkey at the deli counter and took a seat to await our turn.  This place had all the makings of the DMV back home.  Our number was 89, but when the sequence got up to 85, one of the guys behind one of the windows signaled us over.  A nice old man, that could still spot two gringos in need of help through his bifocals. Apparently wanting to practice the few words he spoke in English, he took pity on us and helped us.  Two minutes later, after simply informing him we wanted to buy a car and then handing over my passport, he handed me a piece of paper with my new RUT number – that was easy.

                Gleaming a new found sense of confidence, the next day we thought we’d try our luck finding a suitable car.  As we have yet to determine what our definition of suitable would be for this trip, this was more of a reconnaissance mission.  We found a car lot that was only one subway transfer away and thought we’d start there.  One thing I will say about Santiago is that the metro system is very clean and efficient.  We’ve never waited more than a couple minutes for a train and although crowded, they seem safe and tidy.  Now everything about Santiago has been pretty much the same as we’d expect just a little bit different.  We arrived at Planet Car and walked onto a massive lot of used cars.  Hundreds of cars of all makes and models.  Now back home we’d expect a slick talking used car salesman to quickly become our best friend and put us in a car we don’t want.  Here we wandered around for a good half hour before we had to track someone down to show us a car.  The other thing was this was more of a public lot in which each car salesmen had about 10 cars on display that he personally owned.  All this only came to light when we stumbled across the only English speaking guy in the lot who showed us around a bit.  Anywho, I guess what we really came away with was we don’t know what we want.  4WDs aren’t cheap and cheap cars won’t get us very far.  We thought, “we’ll figure this out after new years”.

The plan was simple for New Years: start with a few cocktails and a bbq at our hostel, head down towards the Entel Tower to watch the fireworks spectacular, party like rockstars back at our hostel.  Everything started out swell: pisco sours poured all around, Chilean wine a plenty, and even a taste of a Terremoto (concoction comprising wine, pisco, pineapple ice cream and a hint of grenadine) along with some nice ceviche and assorted appetizers.  When the time drew near a group of about 10 of us grabbed our bottles of bubbly and headed down to enjoy the fireworks.  Now this was quite the scene.  I believe the population of Santiago is approximately 6 million and to me it seemed like at least half of them were in attendance in the now pedestrianized streets.  Tinsel wigs were common, faux snow in a can being sprayed everywhere was even more common.  This was our first interaction to the Chilean people and we were very pleasantly surprised.  Chileans are salt of the earth people that are proud of their culture and want to share it with outsiders.  All the locals around us included us in all their chanting and sing-a-longs and when the clock struck midnight and all the corks flew into the air, there was no place else that we would’ve rather been. 

                The fireworks then began to light the night sky as the Chilean songs echoed through the streets.  About a half hours works of brilliant fireworks with men, women and young children looking on in awe would be the final highlight of our evening.  When the crowds began to disperse, we began the short walk back to our hostel.  Something caught our eye down a side alley, As we got closer we heard something rustling behind us.  We turned around quickly only to find ourselves in a stare down with what I believe was Chile’s fiercest bull.  What was a bull doing loose on the street in Santiago?! Not knowing which was to turn, Jo quickly tore a red table cloth off a nearby café table and dared the bull to charge.  It threw her up into the air and… OK, Now that would’ve made for a great story… unfortunately ,it’s all bullshit.  Truth is that Jo slipped  on a bit of litter that covered the ground, left over from all the celebrations, as she ran away from a crazy British girl trying to spray champagne on her and fell.  Point being, Jo was now in a lot of pain and there is no way to get her to the hospital as the entire city is in party mode with no vehicles to be found.  Jo popped a Percocet as we rode out the night in our not so quiet hostel room. Loooooong night.

At first light we made a move – quite literally as this was the day we were moving hostels as our current one was all booked up, perfect timing.  I packed all the bags as Jo tried to keep her mind off the violent pains in her arm.  Getting dresses, typically a 5 minute task turned into about a half hour operation, especially as Jo kept fainting, from the pain, or the Percocet, or both.  Awake at 6, we were finally heading to the hospital at 9.  Now since it was now new years day, the only hospital open was the Posta Central, which we would quickly learn was Spanish for “old crappy emergency hospital with no English speaking employees or modern equipment”.  Now we’re doing this trip to experience new things and learn about other cultures but this isn’t exactly what we had in mind.  It took a good 15 minutes of the usual half assed Spanish on our part and the ridiculously fast speaking Spanish on the other end of the conversation to figure out that everything must be paid in full before any medical attention is given to the patient. The good news is that in Chile, medical attention is very affordable.  $30 got us as far as a consultation with one of the two doctors that was working this fine morning.  We were escorted to the consultation “box” and seemingly given preferential attention over others who were waiting longer…stupid gringos.  There were also 4 security guards standing at our door, not sure what the purpose of them was as a woman  (a fellow patient) wandered right in to us, mumbled something in Spanish (presumably because we went ahead of her because we were considered a “grave” case), and shuffled off again.  The doctor glanced at Jo’s arm and nodded to the nurse in concurrence of her suggestion that X-rays were in order.  Jo was shown to a bed and I was handed an invoice and pointed back in the direction of the reception desk.  X-rays would cost another $45, the only problem was that this was a cash only hospital and the only cash I had was about $10.  She took my money, stamped the invoice and back I went. 

                This is when the fun began.  While Jo was lying in her room trying to have a conversation with the woman next to her who had a similar new years eve story except it was her ankle, I was waiting just outside the room in the hallway (I wasn’t allowed in the room with her for some reason I wish I could tell you about).  Now the hallway in an emergency room on new years day is quite the scene.  One woman there has the distinguished roll of mopping up all the blood from this particular hallway.  Just as she finished her rounds, a woman was wheeled past in a wheelchair with her leg wrapped in a towel.  This towel must’ve had quite the leak because it seemed there was a faucet underneath with blood spilling out of it.  One nice long trail of blood about 100 meters down the freshly cleaned hallway.  I was also strategically positioned across from the unisex bathroom from which at this time a woman exited seemingly after trying to freshen up from what looked like a beating she took from her pimp.  She exited just in time for another youth to run in her place just as the vomit was projecting from his mouth…lovely.  As the mopping lady started again on the bloody mile, the most disconcerting scene yet was unfolding.  A male in his early 20s strolled down this same corridor.  From the front it appeared an animal rights protester had taken aim at him and poured a bucket of blood on him from head to toe.  He was just casually strolling down the hallway, shirt off, now red boxers exposed as his now red jeans are pulled down quite low, it wasn’t until he passed by me that I realized what he was there for.  He had a few nice fresh stab wounds in his back – good friends he has, I thought.  At this point the gentlemen seated next to me simply said “streetfighter”.  He went on to tell me that he was one of many steetfighters that are frequent visitors to this hospital.  I instinctively looked around to see if Ryu, Ken, the guy with orange hair or any of the other streetfighter members were around as well.  The Screaming and moaning from all the private rooms was like something out of a torture horror movie.

                By this time Jo had learned that the woman lying next to her 1. Couldn’t speak English, 2. Sprained  her toe in a tragic drunken ping pong table incident and 3. Was nice enough to do her best to translate for Jo to the doctors.  The doc came and kindly, with zero bedside manner, twisted and bent Jo’s arm in every direction to just make sure it was actually broken, and if it wasn’t, to make sure it now was.  No painkillers were given during this torture process. The fellow patient in Jo’s room was finally released with just a wrapped ankle,  Jo prayed she would be that lucky.  The girl and her husband said goodbye to us like we were lifelong  friends, hugs and kisses all round, like I said the Chilean people are so warm and friendly (minus the doctors at this hospital). Anyway when the medic finally realized that I had paid for the x-rays, he wheeled Jo off to the radiology ward to take a better look at her wrist/elbow.  15 minutes hadn’t passed when she was back in the same room and an actual doctor came to see us shortly after.  Now, again, my Spanish is good enough to order cocktails and dinner and check into a hotel, it is not good enough to converse with doctors about orthopedics.  This is the extent of what we came away with: Jo had sustained 2 fractures, one to her radial neck (dunno where the other one was), he was for some reason worried about the bone at the base of her thumb, she would require a cast for two weeks and then exercises for one additional week before heading to a different hospital for more x-rays.  His congratulations to me for understanding came in the form of another invoice.

Same old story with the receptionist lady, she said the cast would cost another $70, I reminded her that I had no money, so she stamped me paid and told me to come back and pay when I had the money…..really?  By the time I returned with the “paid” invoice, Jo was lying flat on her back with her arm in a primevil torture rack in a room that had it’s door marked with “Yeso”.  I would later google yeso translation and have it return as the literal translation for “drywall”.  With her arm suspended by her middle finger in a chinese finger trap, the medic fit her with a sleeve, wrapped her arm in foam padding, and started to spackle the drywall onto her. Squeezing her arm in just the right broken spots.   20 minutes later, Jo had a plaster cast from her bicep to her thumb weighing in at what seemed like about 15 lbs.  This being held up by a piece of 1” wide cheesecloth “sling”.   This would be fun.  Let me remind you, this is Day 3 of being in Chile!

                We knew this meant that our car search would be put on hold for a bit.  Wandering around used car lots in 90 degree heat does not quite agree with a heavy, painful plaster cast.  We took this “opportunity” to slow down and see what Santiago had to offer.  The first thing we did was upgrade to an apartment with air conditioning to get Jo somewhat comfortable.  The second thing was to upgrade her sling to a slight less crappy one, but one that was built for an extra large man (all they had left).The third thing was to upgrade our pain medication stash.  I learned the word for painkiller and headed to the nearest farmacia.  The nice woman quickly sorted me out, gave me a slip and told me to go pay at the cashier.  Now remember when I said that things were pretty much the same but just a little bit different?  Well the cashier was a shared cashier between the pharmacy and the adjacent sex shop.  So here I am paying for my pain killers while surrounded by….i’ll leave that part to your imagination.

It took a couple of days of catching up on sleep and Jo’s pain to die down.  We first explored the neighborhood of Bellavista.  This neighborhood is pretty much split exactly in half with the west side being grungy with most all the shops and restaurants displaying street art on their facades and the east side a bit more upscale with some of the best restaurants and jazz clubs that Santiago has to offer.  We spent an afternoon just wandering around with our resident photographer snapping away and the amazing street artwork, one handed no less.  Evenings were spent trying to decide between the dozens of restaurants and listening to the numerous wandering musicians.  Whether you’re in a high end restaurant and slumming with a liter of Escudo beer at a sidewalk table, the one thing you’ll always find in common is that smoking is permitted everywhere and everyone in Santiago takes advantage of it.  Places are a cloud of smoke 24/7, maybe if half the city stopped smoking , we would be able to get a view of the amazing Andes surrounding the city!

                Our next area of exploration would be Bellas Artes (translated as “fine arts”).  It truly lived up to its name as it provided for a very European ambiance.  With numerous street cafes, wine bars and upscale shops, we decided that if were ever to move to Santiago that this would be where we would make our home.  One while out for a quiet drink and a cheap meal seated outdoors at a café, masked men and women dressed in traditional garb danced passed handing out flyers for a local festival.  Of course we would have to see what this was all about.  Not 15 minutes later we found ourselves at the start of a night parade where they just took over the usually busy streets and marched and danced through the neighborhood.  Good times.

                We really like Santiago and if we spoke Spanish fluently I’d imagine we’d like it even more.  Tomorrow is the day of reckoning as we stumbled on a very modern looking hospital in Bellavista and our plan is to wander is and see what it would take to get an appointment with an English speaking doctor, preferably one with and orthopedic specialty.edit.