Santiago Chile Rillenos

April 18th 2008

My first impressions of Chile were bad. I was taxed $132 USD as soon as I stepped out of the plane for a "reciprocity fee" (we better charge Chileans money to see Canada), then a hawkish Chilean cab-agent followed me wherever I went convincing me it would be impossible to bus from the airport to downtown a 5 AM (I ended up paying $25 USD to get door-to-door to Santiago Aventura Hostel).

The hostel is nice and I managed to catch up on 5 hours of sleep I missed flying through the night.

I tramped through Santiago trying to get to know the city. There is a disgusting amount of smog that looms over the city. The vantage point from Santa Lucea (the highlight of the city) made this abundantly clear.
I walked and walked snapping photos of the interesting architecture which is heavily laden with Catholic Churches (90% of the country is Catholic).

For dinner, I managed to find a plae that served me delicious Chile Rillenos with a glass of wine. At $14 USD this is not the cheapest city.