Today I was unsure what to do with myself, shall I go out, stay around or whatever. In the end I went to the Cerro San Cristobal which is this big hill overlooking the rest of the city. I went with Dries to discuss what we were going to do about travelling to the north, where we were going to go and how. Ate some lunch, had my old favourite a churrasco, it wasn't the worst but was in no way exceptional. We sat at the bottom of the hill in the shade, then saw the Swiss guys from the hostel who were going up to the top, I wanted to but wasn't sure if I could be bothered, after a lot of deliberation I decided to go up by taking the Funicular, the lift that goes diagonally up the hill like the ones in Valparaiso, but much longer it went up more than 600meters at least. The lift still felt as unstable as those in Valparaiso, I felt no way more secure and it was like it could also collapse at any moment but I would go hurtling down much faster and from a higher height. There were two stops on the hill, the first was for the Zoo, curiously placed halfway up a big hill, the second was the stop of the immaculate conception at the top or as near to the top as you can mechanically go, you have to walk to the very top. The peak of the hill had a giant statue of the Virgin Mary, we all had a guess ad to what it was, I presumed it was just like the other Jesus statue or maybe a big statue of Christopher Columbus, when we got to the top and it was just Mary!
The view from the top of the hill was probably the best thing I have done in Santiago so far and is probably the most visually breathtaking thing you can do, it beats going out partying and getting drunk all the time.
You can clearly see how big the city actually is, you get a near 360º view of the entire city, from here the skyline looks far more endearing. I can imagine its probably very rare to have a completely clear day and see all the surrounding mountains clearly in their full glory. It is still breathtaking for me coming from England where we don't really have mountain, not like this and London definitely is not surrounded by any all all, just buildings, a few parks and some hills.