A little taste of Santiago...

So far it has been a rare occurance to even get a view this good of the Andes. But when you do see it is farking impressive to say the least.

Usually they appear more like this. The smog here is *disgusting as*. You can taste it in your mouth (and see it in your hanky), but doesn't seem to bother too many other people and I'm already getting used to it.

San Cristobal is a small hilly-mountain in the middle of the city that has a cable car thingo or a 6 km walk up (we took the cable car thingo). If I didn't hear it I wouldn't have believed it, but Santiago actually HAS THEIR ZOO on the hill (called Zoologico Nacional) with all the standard animals.

This chick sits on the top of San Cristobal, I think her name is Moira?


One good thing about the brown-smoggy-dirt-mist that covers the whole city is pretty consistently good sunsets. I barely had to Photoshop this one at all.


These are two of the most dangerous Kiwis I have ever met, Alex and Butplug. Then there is the lovely (and surprisingly tolerant) Amanda from the US. If I ever see Alex and Butplug and their Kiwi Entourage before they kill themselves somewhere in South America I will be most grateful.

This one is for you Delia, just so you know I'll safe over here. I don't what is weirder, that this massive water gun tank armada is parked quietly on the street or that a grown man is riding past it on a girl's bike.

This is the Palacio de la Moneda in the city that houses the presidential offices n'stuff. There are more police here that people and more dogs that police. At anyone time I wouldn't surprised if there were 15 or 20 dogs in this spot. Some are guard dogs but as to the rest, and likewise with the rest of Santiago, fark knows where they come from. The reason the grass dies before the flower bed—dog piss.







This little fella rests in the Museum of Pre-Columbian Art. Apparently 7,000 years ago (well before the Egyptians) some fishing village invented a type of mummification that was used on people from all walks of life, that removed soft tissue parts and replaced them with sticks, branches and mud. Call me a pessimist, but that fact that it was in a pathetic and unregulated glass box in the corner, was as big as a loaf of bread, and looked like a piece of shit someone put together in the dark, I have my doubts.