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Published: December 6th 2011
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Santiago reminds me of the old computer game Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego. It was a game designed to teach school kids about geography and used to play it on an old Apple that had green type on a black screen. I remember Santiago seeming so exotic and far away!
In reality it is quite a European city and it is really easy to walk around and explore which is nice. I arrived at around 7am and headed straight for my hostel in the upmarket Providencia area. I wasn´t able to check in until the afternoon so had a shower, and after some chatting and gmail checking headed off to explore the city. A girl called Elodie that I met at our hostel accompanied me and showed me the way into town, ATM´s etc - I felt like I had a personal tour guide which was really nice!
Thankfully it was warm the whole time we were there which made it really pleasant to walk around - AND it didn´t get dark until 9pm which was a bit of a surprise after Quito being pitch black at 6pm!
I spent my first day getting to know
the city on foot and trying not to see too much as I knew Jess would be joining me the next day, and I didn´t want to spoil the experience for her, and have seen everything already ! I headed for the main square Plaza de Amas which is bordered by lovely old colonial buildings and went to the mercardo central for lunch. The market is mainly butchers and fish mongers and has a number of restaurants selling mainly seafood inside. I found a small restaurant that had locals in it, and had some grilled fish with rice.
Afterwards I had a look in the gorgeous central church and a wander around all of the department stores and shopping malls, which were a nice change after not having any for the last few weeks.
The next day Jess arrived quite early and once we had checked into our (new) room and I was able to play tour guide with Jess the way Elodie had with me the day before. We oriented ourselves in the main square and headed for the mercardo central for lunch again. I was slightly more daring and had a fish soup with '14 different
kinds of seafood' - all of which I couldn´t identify!! I didn´t finish all as I got a bit squeamish, but it was nice nonetheless.
We then headed for the teleferico (cable car) up on the hill overlooking Santiago. To get there we wandered through more fresh food markets, and the Bellavista neighbourhood, which is young and hip and full of students drinking in bars onthe footpaths. It is also known as an arty, bohemian neighbourhood and has lots of fabulous grafitti on the buildings.
We got a funicular up the first part of the hill and the view was spectacular. There is a massive statue of the Madonna up there and also an open air church which is pretty amazing. It would be pretty special sitting up there on the benches and overlooking the massive city and snow capped mountains while being part of a religious ceremony!
Religion aside it was a gorgeous view, although there is quite a lot of smog in Santiago. So much so that the guide books warn you of side effects of stinging eyes etc . and although I didn´t experience severe symptoms such as this, the dirty cloud above the
city is unfortunately quite pronounced, and you notice it even more when you´re up high and can´t see the gorgeous mountains that are supposedly surrounding you!
While up there I tried Mote Con Huesillo - a drink I had seen people consuming all over town. It´s like an iced tea, with husks of wheat (I think) and 3 poached apricots floating in it. It sounds and looks a bit weird but was delicious and almost a meal in itself!
We went to a local Chilean restaurant for dinner and had our first taste of the gorgeous meats - I had a steak while Jess had lamb and it was great all washed down with a carmenere - a type of wine specific to Chile.
The next day we continued our tour of the city and went up Cerro Santa Lucia - a lookout i the middle of the city that has gorgeous buildings and an art gallery in there also. We had some lovely views over the buildings - nothing too spectacular but good to get another aerial view.
Afterwards we checked out the Pre Columbian museum which was really interesting and had artefacts from all
over Latin America - from Mexico south, and we learnt a lot about history, culture and customs. Of most interest were some chinchorro mummies - extremely old and freakishly well preserved mummies of babies. You could even see the fingernails - ew!
We also checked out the Metropolitan Cathedral and grabbed some Peruvian for lunch (as you do) - complete with the hottest salsa piccante I have had so far - just a speck of it was unbelievably hot!!
We spent the rest of the day wandering through shops and also the artesan markets. We dropped into Cafe Haiti on one of the main drags for a coffee - an interesting place! It was old style, and felt a bit art deco. All of the ´waitresses´ behind the stand up bar either served or made coffee and were dressed in short, skimpy and very tight old style dresses and aprons with all of their underwear showing. Needless to say it was full of men - businessmen who obviously come out for a ´meeting´and a bit of an ogle at the waitresses. With all of that flesh on show it´s hard not to notice it! The coffee was actually
good too 😊
We made our way to the Concha y Toro wine room for some wine tasting before we jumped onto our overnight bus. The website had said that they did wine tastings and sales, however when we walked in to the showroom in one of the poshest parts of town (think Rodeo Drive of Santiago) with our backpacks on, they told us they only do wine tastings for pre- booked groups. We will never know if this is true and they just made a decision based on how we looked, but I now don´t like their wines anymore! 😊
Thankfully we were close to a german beer garden (there seem to be many of these around) and so killed time teaching each other card games (gin and shithead), drinking beer and finally eating dinner before heading to our overnight bus. More in my next installment!
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