Day 50: Getting the shakes

Once again there was another new experience last night... naturally, we were asleep at 3am before I felt the bed shaking a bit. I thought Emma was just being a bit noisy in wanting to go for a wee. When this didn't stop I woke up. Emma wasn't going for a wee and we were in fact in an earthquake... The shaking lasted somewhere between 30 and 60 seconds before ceasing and allowing me to fall back asleep. Emma was of course terrified. We later learned that it was a 5.6 magnitude earthquake. Not massive but not unnoticeable.  The next day we saw our host who said it was as common as seeing rain. Today was a bit of a nothing day. Emma had lots of paperwork to sort out for her upcoming job. So after grabbing some food we headed out to try and find an internet cafe. On the way we got stuck behind some pavement traffic; 20 identically 4 foot tall children, dressed in identical tracksuits being dragged around by teachers. To save myself from boredom in the internet cafe whilst Emma printed off half of war and peace, I decided to try and do some things with the blog. It took me ages to rename all of the blog posts with the corresponding day. I also put the blog into the category of the country that it was in. I'm sure I'll then be able to do something with this another time. It felt weird to put it into the number of days that we've been away. We packed up our things and went to the bus stop. It was already time for Santiago. Thankfully the bus was only two hours. However the drive was one of the most aesthetic ones that we've had in a while. No longer were we in arid desert and could thus enjoy a multitude of colour. Many a vineyard passed by. It's not surprising to see why the Chilean wine is enjoyed so much around the world. Maybe Argentinean is better but we'll see in the next week. 

Immediately we were struck by the contrast in Santiago. From the outlook it looked like it belonged as a city in Europe somewhere. Much more modern, skyscrapers littering the night sky and well-known franchises lined most streets. We've still yet to go into a home comfort franchise other than the coke that Emma got at McDonald's in Cusco.  

We struggled to get into the apartment block. We had been told that the keys were in reception, However we could not get them as we didn't know what room our host was from or her full name. Eventually we left to try and find food and wifi so we could contact the host. We went into the first restaurant that had wifi. It turned out to be a Peruvian restaurant. It was a welcome return to lomo saltado and chicken with rice. The beef in the lomo saltado was potentially the second best that we've had and the best since Huanchaco. We liquidated ourselves with plenty of Inca kola before returning to the apartment block and securing the keys. We always seem to make things more difficult for ourselves than necessary. It will be cool to explore Santiago for the day before onto Argentina.