Day 89, The Santiago Gang Forms

The following takes place on Thursday, February 24, 2011

The plan that formed today involved doing some geocaching along the route of the metro station that stops by my hostel. I packed a little bag with some extra batteries, my GPS, my iTouch, pens, and my camera and took off.

I’ve probably said this many times before, and will probably write an actual article regarding this, but geocaching is one of the best ways to see parts of a city you would normally never see. These are places that locals thought should be highlighted. Out of the way parks, important monuments, isolated view points of the city. Hell, sometimes even locals don’t know about these places themselves.

I took the metro a few stops down to my first stop. Have I mentioned yet how amazing the metro system in Santiago is? Even those that can’t speak spanish can easily navigate the extremely efficient metro system. I’m not saying that applies to the bus system as well as I never needed it, but I think it’d be roughly the same.

The day was extremely hot and made for a really tiring walk. I ended up finding three geocaches this particular day. All micros and all in little parks on the east side of the city. It was really cool. I did get some looks from the locals as it’s probably not common to see a white tourist in one of these parks. They are extremely out of the way from where all the tourists go.

The second one I found turned out to be the most interesting as the MTV X-Games were in the park, practicing with their stunts on the bikes and skateboards. Even saw something I am going to claim as parrots in the park. Bright green and blue with a call that is reminiscent of what I head in the Amazon. It was really cool.

After I found these three, I took the metro back the other way, past my stop, and continued on to the Plaza de Armas.  I wandered around the area briefly, stopping in the huge Catholic Church that always seems to be showcased in every cities Plaza de Armas. It was a beautiful church with marble staircases, amazing architecture, and beautiful statues. More on that during the tour tomorrow.

I also decided that, if I am going to be going out to the bar and such, the pair of Dockers I brought with me were not going to suffice as a pair of pants. I needed. . . no . . . I WANTED a pair of jeans. I love jeans. I am a country boy at heart and leaving behind my wranglers in Canada was a horrible horrible thing to do. Besides, I look pretty good in them I would like to think. So I went walking just down the street from the Plaza and stumbled upon a mall that was having a huge back to school sale. A little looking around and I found a pair of Calvin Klein jeans on sale for C$12. Now, these are jeans that would easily cost over $50 or $60 back home.

On a side note, I have a friend who would be shocked to know that I actually bought a nice pair of jeans. I am stingy on clothes. Why spend $60 on a pair of jeans when that same amount can buy 5 articles at the local 2nd hand store? Oh well. I promised I would let him take me shopping when I get home.

That night at the hostel, a group of us decided to head to the club again, led by Fernando and Sergio(I remembered his name!). This was the first outing of what I like to call The Santiago Crew. It consisted of Kasandra, a girl from BC but working in Ottawa, travelling in Chile for a couple months; Stefan, a guy from southern Brazil working at the university in Santiago in the College of Agriculture; Erin, a Chicago native in Santiago looking to get a teaching job teaching English; and Ben, an Aussie just beginning his 8 month trip through South and North America.

One of the best nights out I’ve had. I had, much to Ben’s shock, this one shot that consisted of Tequila with kahlua which is then lit on fire. You suck it through a straw while it’s still on fire. Surprisingly yummy. Hot. But yummy.

We danced, drank, and had a crazy time. We lost Ben sometime during the night but he showed up the next morning in his bed.

The Santiago Crew has come together.

Oh, and those jeans. They are American jeans so they had American sizes. When I left Canada, I was 36. These jeans are 33.  Something tells me I’ll be getting a pair of swimtrunks by the end of this trip(A friend promised to buy me a pair of tiny swimtrunks if I get down to 145lbs.).