I got to Santiago around 4pm and took the metro to my hostel. I stayed at a place called Princesa Insolente (the rude princess) and it was one of the hardest hostels to find. Poor thekenyanexplorer had to carry her backpack for around 30 minutes to find the hostel. The directions there made no sense. I had evening plans with a lovely Chilean couple I had met on the streets of Bahia in Brazil. I had notified them on facebook that I had arrived and they invited me for a night out with them and friends.

I had a huge dinner alone at a place close to my hostel. After my 24 hour bus ride with no liquids and a few snacks, I felt like "splurging" and eating a proper meal. I don't remember exactly what I ate, but I remember that I had a huge 1L beer to go with it. Aaaaaah! The joy of a large meal and a refreshing beer. Later on we went to watch a dance show by a Chilean group that was performing Colombian inspired music.....Yeah, I am still confused by what that was:-)

My Chilean friends and their friends were really kind. I have to confess though that of the 4 South American countries I went to - Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Bolivia, Chile was my least favourite. It's hard to explain why, but my main reason was that it felt so conservative and not exotic enough. All the other countries had tribes, different races, unique cultures etc, but Chile felt like a generic European country - which is fine if I am in Europe, but when in South America, one clearly has expectations of "flavour", "rythm", "excitement." I never found that in Chile. I guess it's kind of like Wazungus who come to Kenya and expect to see jumping Masaais, lions everywhere, people walking around in their "tribal" clothes and instead find Nairobians in Western clothes sipping lattes in Java.

It was not Chile's fault - I just had my own expectations of the place.

"Great expectations make frustrated men" - Hama Tuma in The Case of the Prison-Monger.