Our flight to Puerto Montt wasn’t until nearly 7pm, so after checking out of our room we left our luggage and went to explore Santiago. A long ramble and a couple of cafe stops later and I’m pretty unexcited about the capital of Chile. It has the feel of a typical southern European city, or more precisely it has the feel of the commercial parts of a typical European city: tall grey buildings, streetside cafes, random shops, interesting graffiti, bustling people and grime. There’s nothing really to give it character or heart that I can see. There could be a glorious mountain backdrop of snowcapped Andean peaks, but unfortunately the city is drowning in a dense smog. You can almost taste it, and occasionally you glimpse the hazy outline of foothills through it. I suspect it is the reason why I’ve been sneezing non-stop since we arrived. Then again, that might be cement dust from the neighbouring building site being sucked into our hotel room by the aircon.
Now we’re in Puerto Montt. The town is supposed to be a dump, but it was hard to see as we drove in from the airport after dark. Our lodgings are a room in a friendly family home, cosy enough to begin with but now that it’s bedtime it is positively frosty outside the bed covers.
It would be good to find another day or two for Santiago, as I can’t be sure that my poor reaction to the city isn’t mostly down to jetlag.
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