Santiago - hot (in more ways that one).

I rode up from the cool coast to the hot city. Sorry to spoil the Blog with a comment about motorcycling.

The traffic is a bit hectic as you would expect of a 4m person city. It was not as straight forward as it looked on the map. At one stage i was trying to hold my phone (with sat nav on) in my clutch hand, a glove in my mouth and ride the bike! It wasn't the way Tufty or Mr Badger taught the highway code! I pulled up next to an empty taxi at a set of lights & got him to lead me to my hotel. He didn't hang around either, I was switching lanes like a dispatch rider. Still it was better than trying to look at the phone.

I am right in the middle of Providencia, the equivalent of Chelsea/Knightsbridge. i had been led to believe that Santiago was a poor 2nd to Buenos Aires - well from what I can see that is not the case. It has beautiful tree lined avenues and lovely buildings. The sights aren't too bad either!

(Note to Rick: If you are coming to Brazil for the World Cup, I suggest you add a few days in both BsAs & Santiago).

I had a bit of "fun" trying to extract sufficient cash from the banks for the letting agent on the apartment I am renting. The daily limit from the cash machines doesn't quite cut it. Fortunately the kindness of the Chileans came to the fore again.

Alec, the racer of historics, I was introduced to in BsAs, put me in touch with Andro, a racer of historics in Chile. Andro also happens to be a Lloyd's broker! He and his son-in-law Sebastian sorted things for me & kindly took me for a delicious lunch too! We naturally spent most of the time talking racing rather than insurance. It is somewhat ironic/appropriate that I should spend my last working day (14th March) with a Lloyd's Broker. They wouldn't even let me try to use the Atrium expense account one last time.
Andro has a BMW 2002 and an Elan that he is putting in to 26R spec. A la Catlow! He will be racing his BMW the week I am back in the UK, such pity as I would love to see Chilean racing first hand.

It transpired that they do a lot of business with John Spence i.e. largest fleet of helicopters in Chile and DAP airlines - the airline that got me to Antarctica. That would have been embarrassing if that had gone down. It would have been jackpot on the Atrium insurances! Death in service, Travel Insurance & the Seat liability! Kids you should have a word with Uncle Mark - he didn't work that one out did he!

After lunch, heard from Wilks that he had just arrived in an Hotel two streets away! Shows how much we talk to each other!

We had a few beers, and a noticeable difference between BsAs and Santiago is that we struggled to find anywhere open to eat! We ended up with an unimpressive steak - such things would not occur in Argentina!
As we were eating a cavalcade of push bikes streamed by with banners, posters and police out riders. The restaurant all applauded as the went by. This may well be a reaction to the NUDE cyclist demonstration that David M mentioned in Peru. Sadly they were all dressed!

Took possession of the Apartment today. 18th floor modern office block. As is the nature o such places, i will not be holding the World Cat Swinging contest in it.
It does have a nice view of the city, although the 35 degrees of heat did not make for a good photo until the evening.

That is the tallest building in South America you can see being built - the triumph of ego over common sense! I have been warned to expect Earthquake tremors as a regular occurrence. As such they have poured so much concrete and steel in to this building that it is an economic disaster.

Wilks and i had a drink with Duncan - another solo bike rider doing his thing in SA. he is stuck in Santiago with a broken rear suspension (familiar tale).

Whilst we had a drink a street vendor arrived selling socks (don't ask me why). Rather than pretend not to notice her Duncan began to negotiate with her (much to the amusement of the two tables of chicas nearby). He ended up with 2 pairs for 1,500 pesos £2).

He hopes to collect his repaired bike tomorrow and I may accompany him with a view to taking my bike here rather than the expensive BMW main dealer.

I pinged a few emails to the various people i have met along the way (with Santiago domicile) and have been pleasantly surprised by the number of responses. It looks like I may be drinking more beer with the biking fraternity than I anticipated!

I had better be careful as Chile has just introduced a "zero tolerance" limit on drink driving!

I now need to arrange Spanish lessons, unlike Wilks, who is convinced he is fluent. The locals insist that one of us gets a grip!