Santiago

I´m in South America now.

Just arrived in Santiago de Chile yesterday, after flying accross the Pacific and along the Andes range. I left at 5pm on Saturday and arrived lunchtime on Saturday, the same day but 4 hours earlier - thats what happens when you cross the date line coming in from Asia..

Its summer here and pretty nice and hot.. very laid back indeed. Everyone seems like they don´t really have much of a care, and we are talking about one of the main cities on this continent. A man came up at the park this morning and asked me if I could buy a book from him, he was about 50 and looked like he could be a school teacher, he said he didn´t have enough money to buy food because the politicians were squandering all of it.. I said I was sorry I couldn´t help but that I wished things improved .. There is such a big difference between Asia and South America, in China for example you see people down on their luck but they hardly ever blame the government.. or if they do they would never tell someone from the outside as they don´t want to shame their country.

Also met a chap on the plane his name is Joep (we´re having a couple beers on photo here on the bottom) and he is Dutch.. He is off to climb Aconcagua a 6000m peak on the Andes range, bit of a hobby for him.. He shipped all this equipment from Schipol airport to the Cargo terminal in Santiago and it arrived on time for him to pick it up at the airport on Saturday. I went to help him out with the translation and it was a good experience because it helped me see the lack of organization in this place. Took about 1hr and 4 people to find where the parcel was. Then over there they told us we needed to go to the agents. After walking for a while in sweltering heat, we found the agent´s office was closed, nobody knew how to get hold of them. The parcel was sitting in the warehouse but we needed a special document to get it out and only the agent could provide it - "Mañana!", everyone kept telling us. Met again today and he´d called the agent - who was around but they said to go tomorrow because the customs officials aren´t around till "Mañana!"... surprise surprise.. hopefully one day he´ll be able to get his climbing equipment and head off.