There is an abundance of maps, tours and guides at your fingertips when you're staying at a metropolitan hostel like La Casa Roja. After picking a few up from reception I pored through them looking for the best collection of walking tours I could do in the city – preferably the free ones.

Thankfully, one of the tours I came across and chose to do was the 'Popular Santiago' tour, run by an independent company called Spicy Chile! It promised to enchant me with the old and new fresh food markets, cheap local food and a 'Terremoto', which is a local Chilean drink made with Vermouth and ice cream (yes, ice cream!)

I bumped into four Israeli tourists who were on a six month trip from the south of Chile to the north of Peru, and ended up spending the afternoon with them revisiting the ever changing Plaza de Armas and sharing yet another empenada!