Our plane landed in Santiago just before 6am and being still very sleepy we waited for the first bus to get to the centre at 6.40am (return ticket C$2350). In 20min our bus took us to the last stop at the tube station "Los Heroes". We went to a few hostels and hotels around but all were full...places in dorms were available but we wanted a double room..."too old for dorms", well that will be a different story in New-Zealand/Australia where we would only be able to afford dorms! Not a good start, especially that we had to walk around in the cold under a cloudy sky, the weather being far different from what we expected. But everything ended up great. We managed to get a double room in Bellavista Hostel (free Internet, free breakfast) which is located in Bellavista a very nice area of Santiago: lots of bars, restaurants, cafes... And the weather became very hot and sunny. We spent the rest of the day visiting the centre of Santiago being very surprised how rich is the city! What a difference with Peru, even the capital Lima does not look like that. The centre of Santiago reminded us a big city in Spain like Madrid, we did not feel like we were still in South America.
