New Years Eve in SantIago

Spent most of the day wandering around the area near our hotel.   We are staying in the upscale Providencia commune, which is close to subways, has decent restaurants and lots of shops.  I can actually see the hotel Chris, Al and I stayed at last year from our balcony, so I'm quite familIar with the area.  We went to a Lider supermercado and picked up a few things for the room.  Lider is a chain of supermarkets that is now owned by American superpower Walmart.  Of course, here in South America that means little more than being an official distributor of Nestle products.  I swear half of what you see is produced by them. Chileans also love their chocolate, tons of chocolate or chocolate flavoured items.   Also, was surprised to see peanut butter on the shelf.  After the difficulty finding it the last time, I might have hit the motherload, largest peanut butter section in Chile. Perhaps 12 jars, split between 2 sizes.   If I was staying longer I would have bought them all!

Cute little characters sell the chocolate to kids...circa 1980 America.  Flavoured with Stevia though!

The huge peanut butter section in Lider... Yes, I really did take a photo, in my world this is important stuff.

    My friend from France, Xavier, whom I met the last time in chile, was in Santiago but leaving later that day for Argentina.   Was hoping to meet for coffee/lunch or something, but time ran out on him and he had to catch his flight.   We did get together with Frank for dinner though, which was a really nice time.  Frank left Nanaimo, Canada 3 months ago and has been riding his motorcycle all the way down, with the plans of reaching Tierra del fuego. Heard alot about his travels, which was great for me, as the same trip is one I plan on doing soon.  Frank also seems to like to try to keep it as a budget travel trip, so it was good hearing some of the detais.   After a nice dinner and drinks with Frank, we said our goodbyes and he was off to his hostel for the night.  In the morning he leaves Santiago and heads south.

   Next, Carolyn and I walked to the Bella Vista area of Santiago.   The last time i was here we caught a cab, and after the walk I remembered how far it was.   Turned out we walked 4.2 kms! Guess it was good to work off the dinner.   Crossing the bridge we saw a huge number of locks attached to it.  Carolyn informed me that it is a tradition to attach a lock to a bridge to symbolize "strength of love" for couples.   We sat at an outdoor restaurant bar for an hour or so, enjoying watching the street dogs, then started walking towards the main street.  As we arrived there, fireworks started going off and a new year had begun.  

   Tired as hell from all the travel, we caught a cab back to the hotel (no way we were walking both directions).  From the balcony of our room, looking out at the city, we could see fireworks going off in all distant directions.  This probably went on until nearly 1pm.