Day 47 - We deliver you to the food

Valdivia to Santiago

We had stocked up on snacks for our 12 hour bus trip to Santiago not knowing what the arrangements would be for stops and food. The bus seats were nice and comfortable and in general we've found that travelling by bus is better than flying in economy - as long as you have the time of course.

The first part of the trip was slow, lots of roadwork and stops in towns and on the side of the road to pick up and drop off passengers, we weren't sure whether we were going to get to Santiago on time. Every now and then a seller boarded with snacks, sandwiches or drinks, they would stay on the bus just as long as it took to do their business then hopped off at the next stop, they must travel back and forth between towns all day.

It was all uneventful, and around 6pm we were handed a menu by the conductor. The idea was that we could order hot meals, drinks and snacks, which we would pick up at a roadside restaurant about an hour down the road. An excellent system, but the food in Chile generally isn't much to get excited about, they are into fast food big time, mainly hot dogs and hamburgers it seems ... we ended up getting some ice cream (yes, we know that's not exactly healthy either!).

The bus made good time after the food stop, and we made our approach to the bus station in Santiago around 10pm. The problem though was that we were caught in a massive bus grid lock, our bus, and all the buses around it, weren't going anywhere it seemed. We took the conductor's advice and got off, it was only a few blocks to the bus station, and to find our way we just had to follow everyone else.

It seemed a bit strange that there were taxi drivers touting for business in the gridlocked area, so we ignored the touts there, luckily by continuing on we were able to walk through the station and on to another main road where traffic was moving, and only 20 minutes later we were at our airbnb,

As we hadn't eaten much we went for a walk and ended up eating at a Peruvian restaurant - which was still very busy at 11pm, and the food wasn't bad either.