OK last night.... everything about yesterday was INSANE! Diana got altitude sickness at the highest, coldest part of the Andes, seriously where the abonimable snowman lives, and we had to pull over so she could heave her buffet dinner out onto the side of the icy road. We definitely left a frozen bag of vomit in the Argentine Andes! Then she was so cold that we had to snuggled for the rest of the trip to keep her from shivering. When we reached the Chilean border everything was seemingly smooth. Erica and I paid 2 pesos each to pee in a really gross portable toilette with a spectacular view. Then we went through customs and I had to declare my cheese because its an animal product... but I guess I looked a little suspicious because I got interrogated about when/where/why I bought it. And I'm like "Es Parmeggiana!" and Tom in the most helpful way is like "Queres probar?" "You wanna taste?"They looked at me like I was a terrorist, carried my cheese as carefully as if it were a bomb behind the counter and a woman puts it in a plastic bag, looks at me disapprovingly and pours blue chemical all over it! It was traumatic!
Eventually we made it into Santiago... what a truly beautiful city! Riding the Subterreneo was remeniscent of Disney's tram compared to BA's Subte! The sidewalks are paved and there isn't caca de perrito everywhere. When we walked out into Plaza de Armas, we all remarked at how quiet it felt to be the city center! But looking at a map and seeing how big it is and how much there is to do, it is dwarfed by Buenos Aires. I understand now why people say BA is the cultural center of Latin America.
Anyway, it was Dia Del Amigo so we were planning on saving our money so we could go out later that night, and we asked our hostel girl where we could find good Chilean food that wasn't too expensive. She sent us to Donde Agusto's which is a famous seafood place in the Central Mercado. Our server was only too happy to seat 6 hungry, loud, travel-frayed tourists who didn't quite yet understand the exchange rate for Chileano pesos. (500 pesos: 1 dollar! And we were changing over Argentine pesos, so every purchase was like doing 3 math problems in your head first and then translating it to another language!) Inflation's a bitch. We pointed to a special on the menu and only after he'd taken our order and ran away to fetch these attractive red bibs that no one else in the entire place was wearing, did we calculate that we'd just ordered a $250 meal!! And we didn't even wanna spend money! It was so awful and ridiculous that all we could do was laugh our asses off, stiff on the tip, and steal the embarrasing bibs. I feel really bad but its ok cuz we told him we were Canadian!
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