Back in the Narrow Country

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Buenos Dias,

The bus rides to get to Chile were hit and miss. The night bus to Mendoza was terrible, complete with screaming children and a snoring walrus. The bus from Mendoza to Santiago was much more pleasant. It was extremely scenic as well. We went through the beautiful pass into Chile, going past towering, snow-capped peaks and even getting a glimpse of Cerro Aconcagua, which at 6962 metres, is the highest peak outside the Himalayas. It is illegal to bring furits, vegetables or meat into Chile. We realized, shortly before the border, that we both had sandwiches with meat and veggies in them. It felt like we were having to get rid of a stash of drugs or something as we wolfed down those subs so they would not confiscate them and we would not get in trouble. Customs were a breeze. Literally, the Chilean customs are next to the Argentinian customs and they just pass it to the Chilean customs. After we crossed the border, we got to see Portillo ski resort, which occupies a beautiful setting in a lake and has nothing but steeps. Unfortunately, it was closed for the season so Peter would just have to stop drooling and wait until the winter. On the drive down the mountain, the bus went through 28 switchbacks to get to the valley bottom. We arrived in Santiago and took the metro, which is awesome, to our hostel La Chimba. The hostel is tow combined houses and is in the neighbourhood of Barrio Bellavista, where there is a large student population and lots of bars and restaurants. The rest of the day was devoted to wandering around Santiago to get a concept of the city.

We are very glad that we are in Chile now because on October 27th, the entire country of Argentina shut down. They are performing a census that they have every 10 years, but everything non-essential is shut. We were annoyed when things would shut for a few hours in the middle of the day so one could imagine how angry we would be if everything was shut for the entire day!

Since we were in Chile, things were not shut down. We went to Scotiabank first, yes they are in Chile too, to sort out some problems with Valerie´s card. We then went to a free exhibition on gold and silver before seeing the largest Chilean flag ever! We went past the Universidad de Chile, then saw some very exclusive clubs that we would never be able to get into before walking up to the Plaza de Armas. We went to the history museum there, and it was interesting, but they had five photocopies of newspaper headlines regarding the Pinochet coup and that was it so we are hopeful that we will be able to find out more information about that time period somewhere else in the city. For dinner, we went to a restaurant called La Ciudadano where we met up with Juan Pablo and his girlfriend Silvanna. They are family friends of Joann Cardemil, who will be housing us in Viña del Mar later on in the trip. Dinner was fantastic! We had mozzarella sticks, camenbert in a cranberry/raspberry sauce and two different types of ceviche. The cocktails were also excellent. It was a very enjoyable evening and it was great getting to know some locals.

We kept our theme of visiting museums going by hitting the Museo d'Arte Precolombino. It had a small but interesting artisitc collection, but nothing like the gold in other Pre Columbian museums we had seen. We had been having sushi cravings ever since we had left Vancouver so for lunch, we went to a restaurant called Kintaro. The sushi was suprisingly good, but quite pricey so we did not eat our fill. After lunch, we decided to do some apartment hunting again, much like we had done in Lima. We went to Remax and met with Rodrigo who explained to us that a person could buy a 100 square metre apartment with three bedrooms in a new building with views of the surrounding mountains and downtown for under 200,000 Canadian!!! Afterwards, we hit Starbucks, not surprisingly, before eating dinner at an excellent French restaurant before going hunting for a bar named Eurohappy that Lonely Planet had recommended. Unfortunately by this time, it was 8 degrees and raining pretty hard so we were very disapointed to find the bar, in the slightly rundown and dark neighbourhood of Barrio Brasil was closed. We were not pleased that we could not warm ourselves up so we simply went back to the hostel to dry out.

The next day we saw the aftermath of the cold weather. Santiago is backed by 5000 metre high mountains. Well, when we woke up they were completely covered in snow! They were stunning!!! We could not appreciate them for too long as we were doing some winery tours. We took the metro, is it not great that one can take the metro to a winery, and arrived at Cousiño Macul. We were given an interesting tour of the massive winery and got to taste the first cabernet sauvignon that we actually enjoyed before rushing off to Viña Aquitania. This winery was much smaller and far more interesting. We had a small tour, and were lucky enough to taste a rose, an excellent cabernet sauvignon and a 2000 vintage cabernet sauvignon/carmeniere blend. The winery reminded us a lot of the smaller ones in Cafayate. We went back to the centre of town and went up to the top of Cerro Santa Lucia, which is a small park, surrounded by the city. The views of the snowcapped peaks were absolutely spectacular!

On our last day in Santiago, we decided that we wanted to visit the Cementario General. Entombed in the cemetary are many famous Chileans including Arturo Pratt, Gabriel Mistral, Bernardo O'Higgins, Orlando Letelier and Salvador Allende. There were also many beautiful tombs including an Egyptian themed one, an Aztec themed one and one with the family name "Batcave". Afterwards, we went to the visit one of the Memorials to npeople who were executed or disappeared during the Pinochet Dictatorship. There were 3082 names and dates on the wall. Some of the people were as young as 12 years old. It was very moving looking at it. Afterwards, we went to the Museo de la Memoria which was brand new and in a beautiful pre patinated copper clad building. The museum is incredibly well organized and is dedicated to the memory of the executed, tortured and missing people who disappeared during the Pinochet regime. It was a very moving museum and well worth the time we spent there. Since it was our last night in town, we went out for drinks. In the area we were staying, Barrio Bellavista, there is an enclosed area that is open aired that had 10 bars in it. We chose one with a beautiful patio and had piscolas and bahama mammas. It was a great way to end our stint in Santiago.

Bye for now,
Valerie and Peter

Things we learned in Santiago:
-The rain in Santiago is like the rain in Vancouver: it rains upwards!
-Lonely Planet South America on a shoestring dropped the ball on Santiago, not surprisingly.
-The police ride very large horses, probably for intimidation purposes, and they might be lacking something else...

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