Santiago again

A note for the reader: This is one of my classic complainy posts. We only intend to share our experiences and entertain, and by no means hate Santiago or Chile. There's no feeling of being above anything in any way; but as we spent quite a long time in Chile (and we actually love it) we feel like we can be critical without being assholes.

If you ask any of us about the least enjoyable part of the trip, we will most likely answer the same thing. 

And it won't be when we were stranded in the middle of the desert with no water or food for over 24 hours, or getting food poisoning on Valentines day. Oh, no. It will be our second encounter with Santiago de Chile.

After the race going South, we found ourselves in Santiago again. We only wanted to rest, take some cash out and get going. It was only one night and one day

... And it ended up being too long.

Still the city has some pretty sights.

We spent a full day looking for some decent food... but it was Saturday. So naturally, as in any capital city, most places were closed (insert sarcasm tone there, in case it wasn't obvious). 

We ended up sitting at one of those random generic tourist restaurants that serve everything from pasta and pizza to seafood and burgers. And where every meal tends to be mediocre to say the least.

The waiters treated us like we were some stray, flea-covered dogs, and completely screwed up our order so by the time Chey finished eating his (dreadful excuse for a) pizza, my meal was nowhere to be seen (I told him not to wait for me because the pizza was horrible as it was, and I didn't want to imagine how it would've been like cold). 

We payed for that awful pizza-ish thing, and went lookig for something for me to eat. Even Starbucks (Starbucks!!) was closing, 25 minutes before the time their actual closing time, and I ended up with a cold muffin as my only lunch *sad, sad violins playing in the background*.

By then I was a bit grumpy and only wanted to get out of there, but we still had to wait until the night when our bus was supposed to leave. We had decided to go to Valdivia before crossing back to Argentina.

There was nothing on Valdivia in the guide, and not much on Tripadvisor. It didn't seem to be a gringo destination and that sounded pretty appealing for us.

But to be honest, anything that wasn't Santiago sounded appealing at that moment.

In fairness: Santiago isn't bad. We had a great time there when we went for the first time, in summer, having a good amount of time to explore. 

...But in winter, and being there for only a day, we felt like it was actually the blandest, most deprived of personality big city we had been to. 

It was a bit more fun around dinner time, when we gave up on trying to find "decent" food (what's that?) and just walked into a super dodgy eatery, the kind of thing you find close to bus terminals, to order fried eggs and chips. 

A healthy meal.

 The place seemed so over the top with movie-canteen details (including the grumpy waitress with Amy Winehouse sort of make up) that it became funny.

Elegant photos of the many light eating options.

More decorative details.

They had a "jukebox" sort of system to play videoclips on the TV set, which made the kitch atmosphere complete with Britney and other 90's classics. It was way more enjoyable than our failed lunch at the touristy area, which proves once more that randomness takes you places.

In the end we were extremely grateful when, after hours of waiting at the bus terminal, our bus finally left for a new place.