South America, Day Two: Twiddling Thumbs

It became apparent during the morning what was missing in this potentially exciting city of Santiago - its people. It seems that Easter in South America actually means something; the place was literally dead as its usual inhabitants fled; on top of this most museums and attractions were closed. Unfortunately the hotel had already been booked for tonight so we had to stick around, which is a shame since I would have happily moved on instead. I think the general feeling is that Santiago should serve as a gateway into Chile as a whole, and that was exactly how I considered it by that point.

Nevertheless we did manage to salvage the day, mostly by walking around aimlessly and seeing where we would be taken. After watching the changing of the guards at La Moneda Palace, we headed west to the museums of Avenue Matucana (everything was closed), and then back to Plaza de Armas to check out the Catedral Metropolitana. Slightly better was to head north to Mercado Central, a kind of enclosed fish market with restaurants and entertainment. After pottering around a bit there we once again became drawn to Bella Vista where we managed to kill some more time.

If you haven't already picked up on the tone, in my mind Santiago was pretty much a bust by this point. We took the opportunity to grab an early night in order to get out of dodge as early as possible the next day.