Finally, after a scenic journey through South-America, we arrived at our last city: Santiago de Chile. Actually we had a bit more time than previously planned, but fortunately we met Nico, our couchsurfing host. A BIG thank you for your hospitality and your energy! Not only that he allowed us to live in his flat for a week, he is the main reason why we had a pleasant and fascinating stay here. His creativity in finding a wide variety of activities is amazing. Of course, he gave us tips for visiting the city and going to Valparaiso (nearby harbour and artist city). Santiago appeared to us extremely European, cleaner than the other cities with a working metro system, new and huge parks, museums and a modern architecture (including the same “beautiful” 70′s-like constructions). Further, the pedestrians are walking faster and it is more difficult to get into contact with them. It is clearly perceptible that the Chilean capital is a booming metropolis. On the contrary, Valparaiso has already seen its richest times past. Once one of the most important harbours at the Pacific, it is now famous for its atmosphere and its cultural life. The houses in all rainbow colours which are spread over dozens of hills, as well as the morbid fascination of the demi-monde has attracted lots of artists of which the most famous was Pablo Neruda. Today not only sailors but also many tourists contribute to the international flair.

On another day, also recommended by Nico, we went to Baños Morales in the Cajón del Maipo. There you can see another different part of the Andes which is similar to the Alps and so again reminded us of Europe. We trekked a whole day along a lovely mountain river, passing a “lagunita” towards a glacier but did not exceed 2500m – lowland trekking! However, we also experienced that we actually were not in Europe: we wanted to go to a football game of the most important club “U de Chile” but unfortunately realized that it is almost impossible to get tickets. Not because the stadium is full (lots of places were still empty), but because you can only buy them on the internet, on a super complex and not working webpage. So we ended up with hundreds of supporters, desperately trying to get their entry in an internet café, all in vain. Maybe this is the reason why thousands of fans came 15 minutes too late, and another thousands watched the game on TV in nearby bars. So we did the best we could to save the evening and watched the match together with them (“U de Chile” won 7-1 …. but the opponent was even worse than the Darmstädter Lilien, although it is hard to imagine).

This is not the first time we had to experience such a similar situation. In Chile they tend to be a bit over-organized and once in a while the country seems a bit awkward, especially if you are not used to the way things run here (maybe this is what Europe appears to be to foreigners). For example, in Atacama there is a park ranger at every place. Several days after the rain, the sites were supposed to be slightly more dangerous and given that they are responsible for our security, we were just denied the entry. Moreover, the imperfect but simple solution (e.g. selling tickets in normal offices) which would be used in other parts of South-America doesn’t exist here anymore, and as the complex solutions are sometimes faulty, they find no way to save the situation and at the end nothing works. To put it shortly, the Bolivian block their country by striking and Chileans achieve the same by working ….

To go back to the positive aspects of our stay, we return to Nico and the people we met. Couchsurfing not only gives you the opportunity to experience some every day life and how high the living standard is here, but also brings you together with wonderful and interesting persons from all over the world. We went out to a big “asado” in a lovely park with ~50 couchsurfers and had a really good time, because here we met the kind of people with a great attitude towards travelling, which sometimes we had missed a bit at the hostels we stayed at. And we learned some cool new stuff we will introduce at our barbecue parties when we are back home: look forward to “m…. c.. v…”!

Since Nico is additionally very sporty, we had an unforgettable bike ride with him to visit Santiago by night. Starting at 11 in the night, we went for 4 hours crossing the city, and at 2am we found ourselves as the only ones on top of the “Cerro San Cristobal”, except some dogs and rabbits. We enjoyed the ocean of lights of Santiago, lying there beneath our feet. And afterwards we had the best, craziest and darkest down hill race ever.

Adiós América Latina y gracias por todo …. ya te extraño, seguro que volveré pronto!