I arrived at noon in the Santiago de Chile airport after the ca 24 hours long travel with flights from Copenhagen, via Frankfurt and Madrid. After some waiting for a hotel room I go downtown. I am happy and excited that I get to visit the Chilean capital Santiago in between my flights.

The entire metropolitan area covers 5.7 million inhabitants and is considered a metropolis with a one of Latin America’s best living standard only beaten by Buenos Aires and Montevideo. It is a huge city with my measures and since Santiago is located in the Andes mountain range the city does not receive enough wind and hence there is a lot of air pollution. You can feel it in your respiratory system after walking a day in the streets with an air temperature of 30 degrees centigrade but still the city is very much alive and kicking.

The whole day the sun is beating and I drink liters of water but get still exhausted by the heat. Downtown is pouring with activities in the streets. I see all kind of sales men and performances. Golden men, street theatres and music bands are all over the place. There are artists and singers mixed with shoe polishers every hundred meters – .at a cost of Chilean $500 (ca $1 US) you can get your shoes fixed. People seem to enjoy themselves – I see a lot of smiling faces and loads of shops and crowded streets.

In the end of the tour I walk the street Ahumada down to the bridge Puente de Calicanto over the heavily polluted Mapocho River, which runs through the city. In this area there are many police men in pretty much every street corner but there is no sense of insecurity and people are friendly. I get to take a lot of street photos and no one really seems to care about me walking with my camera. From Puente de Calicanto I take the Metro back to the Pajaritos station and from there the bus back to the airport hotel and sleep a short night before the early morning flight to Punta Arenas in the very south of Chile. The adventure has begun!