Santiago Culture Shock

When we first got to Santiago it was quite the culture shock!

After ~ 5 months in Australia and New Zealand It felt good to have one.

That’s the whole point of travelling, right?

We arrived on a Sunday and everything was closed.

With everything closed and few people about it felt kinda weird!

Where we stayed, it was just us and the litter, of which there was a lot.

To be honest, between the litter and the graffiti, Santiago first felt intimidating to us.

I deliberately held off writing about this because I knew we just needed time to get used to everything.

The very next day, Monday, everything was open again and the hustle and bustle of people breathed life into the city.

It felt good!

We enjoyed a day in the city, wandering around, eating new foods like empanadas and sopapilla. We took a short walk up a hill to catch a 360 view.

The central area is lovely, really well looked after and clean.

A friend of mine recommended that we go to Pablo Neruda’s house which is now a tourist attraction.

It wasn’t really on our radar, but we were glad we went!

From Santiago you’ve got gorgeous, gorgeous views of the Andes, but looking at those huge mountains had me anticipatory for what was to come next.

Stew set up the bikes while in Santiago and we got rolling! 🥳