Santiago

To start our trip we arrived in to a quiet Santiago on New years eve and checked into an even quieter hostal Suzi. We met Etienne and Margaux, the french couple we bought our van from, for coffee who updated us on all their vanlife travels the past few months and gave us some much needed tips and recommendations to start our trip!

Much to our confusion it turns out Suzi Santiago hostel and Suzi Santiago are two different companies that are in dispute and broke apart in the past few years and due to the bank holiday we wouldn't be able to physically get the keys to our campervan until the 3rd of January. Never the less, we went on to explore a good new years eve spot for the night to find most places close over the bank holiday..!! In the end we found a bar in barrio bellavista who had a lively atmosphere and a drag queen host to count us down to the New Year.

For New Years day, we planned to explore the city more. To our dismay, the whole city seemed to shut down and the only place we could find open to eat lunch was Starbucks. We found a free walking tour that brought us around a deserted city centre with only tourists, homeless and some crazies around.. not the start to our adventures we had imagined! The next day, more restaurants and shops began to open up and we explored barrio Italia which had a lovely atmosphere.

Finally, on the 3rd of Jan we were able to meet Noam and Fabiola to complete our paperwork at the notary and meet Shibi the Mitsubishi.

The next day we moved to Suzi's workshop to camp and to start some small van upgrades. On our second night, we were the only ones there when a fire broke out in one of the other campers. We raised the alarm amongst the neighbours with Joe luckily remembering the word for fire in Spanish and Noam's emergency number got called on the second day of us having it. The bomberos arrived quickly and we meet Augustin, a seven year old neighbour and his family who brought us in for tea.

The next few days were spent painting with a few trips to sodimac, lider, copec, the notary, autoshops, the test centre and a mechanic for a new catalytic converter. We were kept company in the workshop by Yan, the French owner of the burned camper who had just finished a 6 year roadtrip and who kindly shared his stories, positivity and salvaged wine with us.

Just before starting our roadtrip, we headed back into Santiago for one more night for a reunion with Sheila!

Recommendations:

Entel best for sim card 4g coverage
Galpon italia for food and cocktails
Galindo for traditional Chilean food
Malasaña for beer and tapas
Barrio Italia for cafes, restaurants and wandering
Barrio Bellavista for nightlife
Casa Lyon hotel- barrio Italia area and parking

31/12/22- 08/01/23Read more