Santiago an Adventure of a diffrent sort

Well Santiago has turned out to be a bit of an adventure in itself. The short ride (100 miles) from Vina del Mar was easy enough, but nothing really prepares you for the big city after so many days on the road visiting small towns and villages. Our original plan was to meet Richard at the airport and follow his taxi to the hotel. Air France however had other ideas. Richard's connecting flight being impossibly close (in time) to his London / Paris leg meant the connection was almost impossible and Richard was delayed for 24hours.

So this left Sandra and I the very difficult task of finding a hotel in a monster city. I knew roughly the part of the city to go to and was within 4 miles of our destination when we decided to use the old 'lets get a taxi and follow it' trick. This normally works unless, as we did in this case, we get a crazy cab driver who makes sharp turns and sudden lane changes in traffic. Now all cabs in Santiago look the same and there must be 200 million of them. Luckily for me Sandra was sat in the back with a blue neck warmer out the window so I could see which was our cab, but it sure was hard keeping up. Still we made the hotel. A good nights rest saw us back at the airport waiting for Richard. It was great to see him again even if he had spent 16 hours flying in cramped conditions, Richard is well over 6 feet tall.

Now some strange things happen when someone joins your trip, full of energy and enthusiasm, living at a different much faster pace means that we had to step up a gear to keep up, things happen quickly when Richards around. I will try not to bore you with too much detail but having a few beers was top of the priority list, this happened, with the inevitable results.

Richard had insisted (although no one can quite remember why) on making a video blog like we had been doing at various times throughout the trip. The video below is the result, both blogger and cameraman being somewhat worst for wear. If anyone can translate what Richard is saying please let me know and we can add sub titles.

Like I said things happen at a much faster pace so it was no surprise to me, but still a great shock, that I found myself on top of a Chilean horse riding around the mountains with Sandra and Richard. Now I am NOT a horseman and find the whole 'out of control' thing a scary adventure. Sandra and Richard seemed comfortable, but I spent most of the time looking for the brakes, not that my horse was fast, it was actuaqlly much slower than the others.

One Horse, One Stream......No Clue

But what scenery (when I was brave enough to look) we went through. Keep in mind this was no walk in the park, or gentle ride in the fields on a old nag. It was across rivers and streams with tricky obsticals in the way on competition horses. I like to think I handled it all very well, but the video evidence shows this not to be the case. I was not good at this.

The Three Amigos

Richard managed a gallop and Sandra looked like she was born to ride. Me, I looked like Bill and Ben's Grandad struggling to understand which was the front of the horse.

Other excitement in Santiago was a Helicopter ride over the Andes sorted out by Rich and his good friend Henri. This was the most wonderful Helicopter trip I had taken, utterly breath taking and followed by an excellent lunch hosted by Henri.

One of the greatest views in the world

Henri and Juan Richardo both ardent bikers

It is always exciting to find people who are excited about the adventure and Henri and his friend Juan Richardo where always keen to hear us talk about our adventure.

Other things that we saw were the changing of the guard at the presidential palace

and visiting the Ocean Pacifco restaurant (when in Santiago visit this place, I wont spoil it for you by describing it, just pay it a visit) and what can only be described as a world class BBQ provided by Henri and his wife Laura.

As quickly as he came it was time for Richard to go, a whirlwind visit to the Chilean capital. Saying goodbye to Richard was harder than I thought it would be. It's always the case that in a friendship one always is a better friend than the other. In our case Richard is a much better friend to me than I am to him. I am grateful for this and privileged that he is my best friend