Santiago: goodbyes

"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move."

Robert Louis Stevenson

I woke up on sunday with itchy feet...and not from bed bugs.
i felt that i had finally been too long in santiago. it was time to move.
i needed to chek the buses.at around 2pm sunday afternoon i decided to go down to a nearby bus terminal and see what options are there. there was a bus leaving direct to buenos aires at 4pm. it would be a 21 hour journey. i paused for a minute of thaught. then i diced to go for it. i went back to the hostel and quickly packed my things, 2 hours later i was on the way.
given the emotional and phsysical turmoil of the 3 hour bus across ireland from dublin to galway, one would assume that a 21 hour bus would be nonthing short of hell on wheels. but actually this bus was absolutely fine.
the bus attendant walked around with a mirophone , making a tour of it, describing various land features and historical buildings. there was one curious part of the trip where we stopped in the dead of night to see a catethral which for some reason had had a power curt and therefore was not visible in the dark. still our tourguide engcouraged us to imagine it between the silouhuettes of the hills. surely we could have imagined this catethral from a moving bus! anyway , i was here till sometime tomorro so this was not a journey to get impatient on. then we had a raffle for some bottles of wine, and i , happened to be the first winner. this would prove instrumental in getting me to sleep later on that night. then another nice surprise was a stop off at a restaurant in mendoza where we were treated with a prepaid meal including some tender argentinian beef. the only thing that let me down on this bus journy in fact was the movie they showed. it was one of those movies where eddie murphey plays several characters. however dry it may be with eddies original voice, putting spanish overdubbes seems like missing the point, doesnt it?.
anyway, with spacious reclining seats that they have on these "semi-cama " buses the journey was a pleasure and i would do it again anytime (apart from today). i really wonder why we cannot have such nice buses back home.

some final photos of santiago....


i was invited to dinner by 7 brasilian girls form sao paolo who were holidaying in santiago. i had already had pizza but how could i refuse!
i decided to go and have just dessert. which incidentally was "torta de tres leches" . if you like cooking , get the recipie for this , its exquisite!
( note , the torta is at the front of the table, i am sitting in the seat of girl number 7 who is taking the photograph)



my friend daniela took me for a bottle of chilean wine in a famous chilean bar called "las tejas"



mural on the wall in bar "las tejas"

soccer boy wonder in santiago...next maradona?

sunset in plaza de armas , santiago



arrival in Buenos Aires! first impressions... bigger and hotter!