Friday 16 Apr 2010
Santiago, Chile
Back on the continent... more pic uploads
Quick one here...
Arrived back at Santiago after leaving Easter Island at 1pm. Ended up being given the exact same emergency exit seat as coming over - middle row - but thankfully no little kids running over my feet this time!
Watched "Being John Malkovich" (which was weird and hilarious) and some doco about the Rapa Nui, which was quite interesting as they spoke about how they were treated (badly) by the various European companies that ran the island until as recently as 1963, when Chile adopted it, and how all current Easter Islanders are descended from the 111 people that survived (from an original population of 9,000) the slave raids and the smallpox outbreaks. The people that were killed as part of the slave raids also included the last king and the priests who all knew how to read the RongoRongo text (no-one now knows how to read this language, despite vendors still selling souvenirs with the script on pieces of wood or tshirts... it could be a recipe for Chicken soup for all they know)
Santiago is still the same Toronto-esque city I saw last time... nice array of restaurants, and I treated myself to a slap-up quality Chinese meal for a "cheap" 17 euro. Delicious... but yeah, Chile is basically as expensive as Ireland. They're rich folk (by South American standards) I tell ya.
I've got an early morning bus to Mendoza, Argentina in the morning. Going to stay there for around 3 days sampling the amazing wines, and not doing my liver any good. Sure ya only live once so who cares!
Have uploaded some more Easter Island pics... will try to write up the blogs in the coming days...
Ciao!