Santiago de Chilli!

Upon arroval in Santiago the first thing anyone said to me was "Be careful, its very dangerous as you are tall and blonde", a sentiment I have now heard repeated in every new place I've been to. It entertains me that the accent and people change, but the warning doesn't. I actually spent my short time in Santiago feeling incredibly safe, but perhaps this is because I always heed the warning.
The hostel I had chosen to stay in in Santiago was comically called Hostel Chilli, and was booked upon recommendation of my friend Emma, 'You HAVE to meet Elvis'. And it's true, he isn't dead, he's working in a backpacker hostel in Chile. The hostel, it has to be said, was one of the best I had stayed in so far. They had DUVETS!!! AND free pasta. AND free breakfast. And Elvis did turn out to be one truly awesome dude; when I first arrived at the hostel there were no other English speaking tourists there so Elvis took it upon himself ("my mum loved Costello, ok?") to take me on a 'lesser seen parts of Santiago tour' to see some of the pretty suburban areas so often missed out by tourists. This turned out to be a pretty entertaining afternoon as we had to get on several buses to reach our assorted destinations. In Chile this is a problem for non locals because you need an Oyster type card to get on any of them. Assuming I spoke no Spanish at all (he hadn't asked!!) I heard him say to the bus driver 'this is my friend, she is slow but harmless and has no money, can she ride for free?!', which the driver kindly assented to presumably not wanting to leave a disabled girl alone by the side of the road! When I questioned Elvis about this method it prompted about five minutes of hysterical laughter resulting in the entire bus probably thinking we both had issues.
The city itself was lovely, much more European feeling than anywhere else I've been out here, and the closest to the first world by miles. The Chilean's actually refer to themselves as the Europeans of South America, and with good cause (in Santiago its true anyway- other parts of the country are a shade rougher!). The architecture was, once again, a thing of beauty but much more consistant in style than anywhere else I've been. I somehow ended up in the middle of an extremely energetic demonstration about Universtiy fees while in the city centre which took me about half an hour to dinsentangle myself from (people kept dancing with me), I was very entertained by placards depicting the Chilean minister for education as Mr Burns. In the evening at the hostel there were free burgers and goregous chilean wine, and by this time I had been joined a couple of lovely but loud American girls and an enjoyably sacastic Ozzy. Plus a Brazillain guy called Douglas joined us from the night before who previously hadn't approached me because he thought I might be 'one of the bad sort of English' (people make comments like this a lot here- I'm not sure what other English backpackers are doing but I'm starting to build up a disappointing picture). We had a very enjoyable night getting increasingly sloshed and discussing our assorted travel plans, joined later by Elvis who isisted I show him my favourite songs from Lily Allen's back catalogue so he could download them 'and think of the crazy english chica' (truth be told, I'm not sure I want to be associated with Lily in anyone's memories, but he was happy).
The next day I had to catch my bus to San Pedro de Atacama in the afternoon, but I spent a productive morning hiking in the beautiful national park, up to see the staue of Maria that guard Santiago as Jesus does Rio. Unfortunately I only have phots from about half the hike as my camera batteries died... but it has to happen to the best of us once and next time I will check before leaving. Plus you poor people who will be expected to look at every single one of the 3000 phots taken SO FAR will definately not be upset about the loss of an extra 50 (I've recently realsied from talking to other travellers that I'm something of a photo fanatic, where they take one I'll take 15, but they're my favourite kind of souvineir so I have no intention of slowing down.).
I grabbed my bus to San Pedro about three thirty and bade Santiago goodbye. Some of the nicest people I've met so far, and definately the most developed city I've seen here, but to think it inhabits the same continent as the abysmally poverty ridden Paraguay blows my mind a little and part of me was glad to leave behind the European vibe and get back to seeing a whole different way of life.