Half day in Santiago

We left Switzerland on a beautiful day with some amazing views - an omen for what we're going to see soon? But first we had to stay some long hours at the airport in Madrid. Our flight with Iberia was scheduled for 0.20am; a lovely time. To my surprise there was enough leg room for my long legs to be comfortable (as comfy as can be in economy, and definitively better than Air France).
We flew into the deep night and only escaped when approaching Santiago de Chile where we had some 6 or 7 hours to kill. So we got the first best taxi driver to get us into town, Ruben by name, took us around to a hill with Virgin Mary on top. Santiago has 6 million inhabitants - and you can tell. The city stretches to the surrounding Cordilleras. Actually there are no nice views. The same once in town. There is no Latin atmosphere as I would have expected. People just are, they sit around, they walk around but that's it. There is no cheerfulness visible. The ones we ask for direction are friendly, though.
We make it back in time to the airport. Another Ruben starts to tell us how good life was with Pinochet. The points he makes are probably true (as they are back in Switzerland: things where better in the past, cleaner, easier, etc.). Nevertheless, Santiago is not a perl among large metropoles.
So off to the North of Chile, Arica is the destination and we get there at around 7.30pm. The "old guy" from the Cactus rental place is already waiting for us - nice. He drives us to the hostel Sunny Days and promised to come back the next day with some papers.
We go to bed straight away, it's been a long journey and everything went smoothly.