Santiago, Chile Day 6 and 7

I am leaving room here for olya to tell you more about Igassu...

Olya:

OK, so we went on this boat ride into the falls. The guide warned us that we would get wet, and we brought a change of clothes which we left in our van. However, while I thought we would get wet from the mist from the waterfall, it actually ended up being more of an amusement park ride because we went into the waterfall, so it was more like buckets of water pouring down from all sides and from above. Since it’s generally not very warm here, this was not pleasant for me personally. Sereja, however, loved every minute of it. Since Katya´s emails are very detailed, I will also mention that upon disembarkation, all the European women that were on the boat proceeded to change right on the dock in front of everyone. It went something like this: take of pants, take off underwear, reach into the bag, find new underwear, sit down, put a towel in your lap, then slowly put on the underwear, then take off the top (and bra), reach into the bag again, put on a new bra, then pants, then shirt.

The second story I have is about the sauna. Katya probably mentioned that it was very cold in our hotel in Iguassu, so we decided to warm up by going to the sauna. Of course they neglected to tell us that the sauna needs reservations, and is also not free. However, you do get it all to yourself with a key for the door. Well, it sounds like a nice experience, but it was super cold in the sauna. I know that sounds ridiculous, and to be fully honest it was nice and hot toward the ceiling (yes, I know heat rises) where our faces were, but our feet literally felt like icicles on the cold marble floor. The only way for us to stay in there was to sit on a bunch of towels on the benches (cold, marble benches) and hold our legs up over our heads.

And now back to our regular programming....

OK,

I guess I will have to pace myself for this story. We left from Iguassu and went back to Sao Paulo - we have been in that airport 3 times already. We got on to our flight to Santiago with no problems and all of us got our luggage at the airport. Then we started to look for our guide who was supposed to pick us up. We stood around for a half an hour and started to get worried when finally we saw a man with a sign that said "Shafran" We greeted him and breathed a little easier but only for a second. The reason he had "Shafran" written on the sign was because he was only expecting Olga and Sergey Shafran and had no idea who the rest of us were. It took us a little while but we finally convinced him that the rest of us were also on this trip. Luckily he came in a van so all of us fit in with our luggage and we drove to the hotel. When we got in, we found out that the hotel reservations were also made for one double room since they were only expecting the Shafrans. Masha ended up giving them her credit card number in order for us to be able to stay in the same hotel. Our guide also told us that until he receives confirmation from his company that Masha, Ilyusha, and I paid for our city tour we can’t go. Since we have a time difference of 3 hours between us and LA our tour was moved until 2 pm.

After all of the unpleasantness was taken care of, we decided to walk around the city. I’ve got to say that I love the city and I think everyone else feels the same way. We took the subway to the downtown area (which was the cleanest subway I have ever seen) and ended up at a castle (we later found out that the castle is the original Santiago site. we climbed all the way up and had a great view of the whole city. There were little gardens and squares on our ascent and we stopped and chilled for a little while. I also have to mention that the amount of PDA here is insane. Everywhere we look there are people making out - mostly in parks and squares. After we spent some time on top of the castle we came down and saw a big market where we drove the boys absolutely insane. I seriously think that by the end of our shopping they couldn’t think straight. We have broken their spirits. When they finally dragged us away we decided to walk around and look for a place to eat dinner. On our way we saw a store with a huge sale... yeah they wanted to kill us :-) When we were dragged kicking and screaming from the store we took the metro to the university area which was slightly shady and had a really nice dinner in one of the restaurants. A good time was had by all. Then we went back to our hotel to rest up for the battle with the travel agencies.

This morning we woke up and had breakfast as usual, and then Olya and Masha spent some time on the phone with the Chilean agency that was handling our reservations. Everything was cleared up and we were told to be ready at 2 pm. Since we had a few hours to spare we walked around the city for awhile. It has a very European feel to it. Also everyone is very nicely dressed and groomed. It’s just nice to see people to well taken care of. The only shady areas seem to be the parks. We really enjoyed ourselves and took a bunch of pictures. We made it to the hotel 10 minutes before our tour was supposed to start. Our guide was about 15 minutes late when we called the company again. There was another miscommunication so the guide didn’t even know he was giving us a tour. The company sent him and the driver over. To make a long story short we started our tour at 3 not 2.

Once the tour started it was great. Our guide was very knowledgeable and he told us a lot of interesting things. For example, when there’s a lot of traffic the president takes the metro to work. We stood about 5 feet from an ex minister of justice. We didn’t even know this until our guide pointed out and then we saw all of the camera crews rushing to talk to him. Chile is very safe and laid back about security, but they do have a large police presence, especially in areas where crime could potentially be committed like markets and the metro. The guide was really hungry and so were we so he took us to "el rapido" that served us the fastest food I have ever seen. We all had empanadas and they were great. After lunch we walked around the Plaza de Armas and went into a beautiful cathedral. The confessionals in Chile have chairs that face each other. The Chileans believe that the religion and the people should not have walls separating them. So far they are the only country that has such confessional booths but our guide told us that Mexico is also converting to this method.

Once out of the cathedral we drove to the top of the mountain where the Virgin Mary statue was. Chile was incredible to look at while we were driving up. We saw 2 ski resorts in the distance. This country is amazing. They are 1.5 hours form the beach; they have skiing and wine along with really cheap food and a good economy. I think a ski trip here is a must in the future. We climbed about 150 steps and ended up with another gorgeous view of the city. Did I mention I love this place? Our final stop of the tour was the modern district’s wine store where we all bought a lot of Chilean wine. We already drank a bottle and are now on our way back to the district to walk around and eat dinner. Stay tuned for Argentina, we fly out tomorrow morning - this time hopefully without incident (THIS PROGRAM HAS BEEN INTERRUPTED BY MARIA: KATYA QUIT JINXING US. EVERY TIME YOU MAKE YOUR WISH WE HAVE MISHAPS, SO STOP IT!) OK. I gotta go. I will write more from different country.