Prior to Rick's arrival, we decide that we should get some local currency, Chilean Pesos, so we make our way over to the ATM. We don't have a clue about the exchange rate but figure $200.000 should be right. Well we forgot that Chile uses a "." instead of a "," so we ended up getting 200,000 Chilean Pesos in 10,000 bills. This was quite a shock for us with us both thinking we had drained the bank account as well as going into overdraft. We quickly tucked it away hoping no one saw the large volume of money we had on us. Luckily there was a coke machine next to the ATM and we saw that a coke was selling for $800 peso. The exchange is around 465 peso to 1 CDN$. Whew we weren't going to be robbed it is only about $425 Canadian.
Rick arrived just after our money adventure and we were off to his apartment in North West Santiago. We know Rick from his time in Sudbury where we sailed with him. We chat for about an hour and then head to bed. We have lost 2 hours coming to Santiago from Lima and it is 11 a.m. local time by the time we wake up and get moving. Rick has gone to work for the day but left us keys so we can go and explore. After a bite to eat, some blogging and laundry done we head down to the lockers to borrow Rick's bikes for an exploration ride. Rick lives across from a park that has black necked swans which was a new bird for us. After a short ride we are back at the apartment. In the evening we head for a nice seafood dinner in the older part of Santiago. The place has an oyster bar where we have some oyster and white wine and then we sit down for our meal. It is only 8 pm so we are one of the first people, Latin America are very big on late suppers. An excellent meal was had by all.
Photo Notes
1) Julie and her new friends (Blacknecked Swans)
2) Rick's apartment building
3) View from Rick's balcony - there were two gilders being towed
4) View of the Andres mountains from Rick's Apartment
Cheers
Dawson and Juiie
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