Schnecken on the run

I think my legs deserve a tiny break from flying. Our 14 hour flight from Auckland to Santiago de Chile did my veins in to the point of near explosion. .Varocose veins are always a catastrophic souvenir. Santiago just sounded good to me; this being my 1st touch down on South American soil. We were excited to visit our fantastic chilean friends who we had met in Tibet, Andreas and Carlos–the rockstars of Santiago. They greeted us with open arms….and overfilled glasses of PISCOLA (the national whiskey/wine-style of drink mixed with cola..very smooth and dangerous!) We had our first tasty `REGGO` experience with chilean food. I had a ´PASTEL de CHOCLO´; sounds like chocolate, but in fact it is a type of pie filled with chicken & creamy, mashed corn. Thommy ate some very tender meat slices with chilli-seasoned mashed potatoes.

Our first full-day in Santiago, Andreas toured his city with us..we saw the great highlights and visited the university, here we met his caliente ladyFRIEND, Maite. The day was absolutely super. We kickstarted the night with a BBQ @ Andreas´s apartment. For a vegatarian, Chile is no place..these locals adore meat and alot of it with mucho salt to give it a crusty outerlayer. They cook the steaks very slowly with very little heat from the coals with a whopping 2 tbsps or more salt per side. I have been sooo PARCHED since our arrival. We cranked up the party scene after BBQìng and visited a club in the district „Bellavista“ near our guesthouse. The music, energy and PISCOLA were intoxicating and kept us out till closing time; 4 am during the week and 5 am on weekends. So the time quickly creeped up on us and enough was enough. Andreas and Maite left and we were standing alone with all the barFLIES to fend for ourselves.

Within a moments time a lovely looking man approached ….no, he didnt approach me, but of course he headed towards Thommy. With a soft and gentle pat on Thommy´s shoulder, he asked the classic question, „Donde esta la baños?“. So Thommy pointed to the toilette located at the back of the club. Apparently that was not enough, this HOT cookie wanted more, he once again presented his question with a touch more of an inclination…he seemed to know where the baños were (i am sure that he was no SPRING chicken to this club), but he was wondering if Thommy could go with him! hahahaha!! DIOS MIO!! Thommy quickly put his arm around me, smiled and clearly showed that he was with me….therefore that he had a preference for women and that there would be no chance of love for that chilean with Thommy! With that PARTY-STOPPER of a moment, we decided that we should get back home; just an easy 3 block walk.

Firstly, we asked for directions for some street GRUB…churrasco, an instant heartstopper style buger with tons of avocado & mayo. On the short journey from the club to the burger shop, we passed a car with the car alarm blarring and it was clear that it was not the owner who was „clearing“ out this little car. This jackass had 5 to 6 jackets hanging off his arm and was moving around the car and quickly opening all the doors and examing the whole inside of the car. At this point there were `normal`citizens walking by from all angles and on the corner we noticed that the HEAD thief had his partner-in-crime standing on guard. We scooted quickly out of the chaos and watched the uncanny events from afar. A big police van drove up next to the blarring car, stopped, sniffed the air, showed some muscle and then … drove off! The jackass criminal had somehow easliy blended into the crowd without his new possessions in hand, only to suddenly re-appear and continue his nasty business seconds after the paddywagon drove away. The criminals loaded up their get-away car and screeched away like bank robbers in the movies. The car doors were not fully closed and they didnt have the lights on; they had obviously just committed a crime as dirt blew everywhere with a stench of rubber in the air.
To make matters more entertaining @ 4:30 am with avacodo stained t-shirts, we realized, of course, that the area appeared differently in the dark. I am not going to declare that we were lost, but perhaps we were just very obviously MISPLACED GRINGOS…very misplaced with a very fresh GRINGO status.

After a bit of a walk around, I decided to ask a wanna-b cop style-security man, who was working on the street wearing a high-vis vest, if he knew where our guesthouse was. Let me just mention, that under all other circumstances, we always have the address of our guesthouse with us (we are not total rookies), but we were with our friends earlier and had not thought about the future of the the night. Thommy used his spanish and I stood there only to quickly realize that this LAWFULLY abiding citizen had just offered us to buy cocaine!…There are always 2 roads to take and the road to drug abuse somehow would have never gotten us back to the guesthouse. So forget that !!! Thommy had a moment of silence and with the guidance of his good military training, he brought us home!!! YIPPY!!
The next day was a slow one, but with a safe and very enjoyable BBQ in the evening in the security of our guesthouse.

We headed to VALPARAISO the next day with Andreas and Maite; just over an hours drive from Santiago. The builidings are creatively and colorfully placed into the sprawling hillside in this artistically focused city. We toured around and enjoyed all the graffitti art, followed by a ride on one of the many pedestrian trams. Dinner was MEAT and dancing was sweet…the day was soon over. We had a great seaside fish brunch with our fantastic and fun chilean chicos and said our goodbyes. Thommy and I did a tad more touring of the city and laid low in the guesthouse until the next morning to catch an early bus to MENDOZA…the wine tasting capital of Argentina! …and the ARGENTINIAN FUN began!!