we took the advice of the lonely planet and flew across the andes from buenos aires to santiago in chile...wow! what a view of the snow-capped mountains as we were coming in to land!but once we were on the ground, it didn´t take long to get swallowed up under santiago´s smog cloud! we jumped in a taxi headed for our hostel after negotiating a fair price. our driver, who was clearly not an "official" taxi driver, was very friendly, pointing out sights along the way and offering to stop at an atm for us. when we got there, he insisted that he´d meant 10,000 chilean pesos per person, not total...sigh. sorry buddy...you should have caught us at the front end of our trip before people in vietnam and egypt and india and every other developing country we´ve visited had tried that scam! we launched into our usual routine...flat out refusing to pay. 
daryll stayed in the car while i got out to get the bags from the trunk. (in vitenam, if you argue over price, then get out of the car without your bags, drivers sometimes drive off with your stuff in the trunk just long enough to get you panicked and willing to pay any price to get your stuff back.)
but after that illustrious introduction to santiago, we settled in to our hostel quite well and met lots of really nice folks. we even met a couple from spain who were 1 week into doing the same thing we did! they´d saved up and quit their jobs and are travelling the world for a year! aww...it made us feel nostalgic about having so little time left in our trip! and excited to share all sorts of info about good places to stay and things to do in some of the places they´re headed to.
we spent a week relaxing in santiago, where it was very cold at night. (our little private room had a faulty radiator so we scored a small electric heater from the front desk...if only we´d known that was the warmest we´d be for the next 2 weeks, we´d have appreciated it more!!) most hostels here in south america do not have indoor heat!...not nice at all when it is proper winter outside! barrio bellavista is a charming neighborhood of santiago with lots of shops and tasty restaurants. we sampled pastel del choclo, a yummy chilean casserole with corn and ground beef and cheese...mmm...sticks to your ribs! we rode the cable car and took in the views of the city, and we took a day trip to a nearby winery, chile´s oldest. the wine was nice, and it was a relief to be able to understand much of what the tour guide said in spanish before he translated to english. unlike most of his fellow chileans, he had a knack for speaking slowly and clearly, so dp and i didn´t feel as bad as usual about only catching occasional words in a string of sentences! jokes...
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