The night Christie came, we explored around the parks and encountered more couples kissing each other! They were quite the frisky ones. Interestingly enough, we also found exercise machines. We spent a bit of time working out and getting buff before heading on to this restaurant/grill place called Mamut, which is basically a Chilean equivalent of Chili's (no pun intended). The food was great, and we got our first pisco sours. French fries have never tasted so good. And, we also got to watch a performance by this group of women!
On Saturday, my friends and I were able to visit the zoo! It was in Cerro San Cristobal, but little did we know it would take us about 2 and a half hours to get there. We ended up walking from our hotel to this road that ran along a chocolate river (well, not really chocolate, it’s actually known as the Mapocho River) and it eventually turned into a freeway. Along the way, we came upon a fellow friend, Sparky (christened by Chris), that accompanied us along the way. Actually, more like led the way. He must have been psychic; just look at his eyes.
For some reason, we then decided to cross the freeway to walk onto the island in the middle of the two-way road, but it ended in failure. Also, the dog magically avoided traffic as it followed us, much to my extreme state of stress. We returned to the side of the road and sought directions in a building nearby. Afterwards, we continued for some time until the road turned into a sketchy, remote dirt road, and two taxi drivers were nearby. Taking initiative, I accosted them and asked for more directions towards the zoo. One guy started blasting out Spanish sentences, and I said yes to everything I did not understand. When he finished, he ushered for me to come over. Red flags galore in my head. But then the guy said something like he wasn’t going to eat me, so I came closer. He ended up showing me the way to the zoo, which was nice of him. When he finished again, I thanked him and told him we were off. He then told us to leave the blond aka Christie and go on in exchange for his help, but I happened to not understand that, said yes anyways, and STILL left with the blond, much to the drivers’ confusion.
In any case, we arrived at the zoo at 4 pm, safe and sound and accompanied by the dog, who upon reaching the entrance found another family nearby to follow. I felt like a little kid again, going to the zoo! It was an amazing experience, and I took a bajillion pictures of animals that I had never seen before, like lions and tigers and bears. I even saw giraffes and elephants, which was cray cray. Also, a llama. I really enjoyed the Bird Cage place: it was an entire strip of the zoo that was caged and sprayed over with fine mist, and the strip was suspended over a very deep jungle-like setting that seemed almost unbelievably. It was definitely the effect of the mist.
After the zoo, we went a little bit south until we bumped into Barrio Bellavista, which is a strip of tree-lined streets where we had a little time to enjoy ourselves. This was where it was happening. I saw many young people here, hanging out in the restaurants and bars and discos. Afterwards, we ended up walking more until about 9 pm, when we definitely became lost and had to call a taxi. At this point, we were all exhausted so it was time to call it a day.
...Sparky??
ReplyDelete