SANTIAGO, CHILE—Thursday-Sunday, December 26-29, 2013

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Thursday, the 26^th- fly from Rio to Santiago, Chile

We had a bit of a bumpy flight and we looked down out the window several times to see the cause--the deep snow-covered Andes. We arrived about 7:30 pm after a 5 hour flight. We think there was a two hour time difference. Got our luggage and then walked across the street, literally to the modern Holiday Inn to spend a couple of nights. We were using points for the room rate. After checking in and getting settled, we went downstairs for dinner in their restaurant. Expensive and neither of us felt the light meal was worth the price. From that point on, we bought our food across the street at the airport or in town.

The next morning, we walked back across the street to catch a taxi into town. The big airport buses dropped you in town, but not where the Hop-on Hop-off bus had a stop. When we got to the old market to redeem our voucher, we found that we had just missed a bus that went every hour, so we walked through the old market which was now just a fish market with the outside halls full of fish stalls.

The inside "square" of the old iron and glass-ceilinged building was filled with fish restaurants. The specialties of the restaurants are 1) an earthenware bowl filled with boiling seafood called Paila marina and 2) snow crab legs. The Paila marina is supposed to help cure a hangover, so traditionally thousands come to the market to eat this on January 1.

We found a small restaurant located on a side hall and ordered some for lunch. If we could have read the menu and knew what the different seafood choices were, as they had several varieties listed on the menu, we would have enjoyed the dish more. What we ordered was full of a variety of shellfish like several kinds of mussels and barnacles and other things that I don't want to know what I ate. It was somewhat gritty/sandy but it was an interesting cultural experience as we were the only non-tourists in the place and the staff/owner was real friendly.

Santiago is a very old city founded in 1541 in a valley on the banks of the Mapocho River with several hills plus the Andes Mountains as a backdrop. It is the capitol of the country of Chile, the province or state capitol, and also the city of Santiago, so all kinds of 19th century neoclassical government buildings are located in the old downtown district. This is what the bus drove through first. The side streets here are narrow and the traffic jammed such that we got some good views of the architecture as we traveled through to get to one of the main downtown east-west thoroughfares. It was hard to take in all this area's sights; the Presidential Palace (undergoing renovations), statues of famous men, plazas, theaters, and all the government buildings in their various neo-gothic and art-deco styles.

Like many big cities, years ago, Santiago was surrounded by other smaller communities, farms/ranches and estates each with their own individual style. The city grew out to encompass these communities but the communities have still remained as different neighborhoods. The bus left the old downtown and drove into and through a number of these neighborhoods--some with very neat single family homes, some with high rise modern apartment apartments buildings, some more artsy with small shops, one neighborhood full of foreign embassies, another filled with restaurants and sidewalk cafes. One district is the community of Providencia, which was founded by the sisters of the Divine Providence in 1897. They were headed from Eastern Canada to Oregon but met a Chilean ship captain who brought them to settle here instead. Several mission style churches/chapels are all that remain of large Fincas that once surrounded Santiago.

We turned perpendicular away from the river and traveled alongside the huge exclusive Los Leones Golf Club on Avenue Presidente Kennedy and then into the modern "downtown" area known as Sanhattan--a mix of Santiago and Manhattan because it is the business, hotel, and financial district built from the 1990s through today. Modern high rises including the tallest building in South America, plus huge malls, and very upscale apartment buildings are found here. Also spotted was an interesting modern art piece with human body parts that was difficult to understand as we could only see part of it from the bus.

The bus turned around at a large shopping center, crossed the river to the other side, and traveled back down toward the older part of the city skirting the City Park and Zoo covering the Santa Lucia hill. At the top of hill is a large white statue of the Virgin Mary. We crossed the river and drove down streets that are the very heart of the City--the plaza in front of the main Cathedral. We think because it was just before the 6th of January--when presents are given out in Spain---that the streets were absolutely packed with people--or maybe it is always that way.

We returned back to the Old Market and decided to walk across the wide, wide street to look at the market there. We first went into a smaller building filled with flowers and then crossed an alley into the 2-story main produce, cheese, etc. (clothes sold on 2nd floor) market. Continued next door to a small tented crafts market where we purchased some pottery angels for the Christmas tree. We think they are made in Peru but this style is what we have seen sold all over Chile. Crossed back over to the old market and bought a variety of empanadas for dinner.

Caught a taxi ride back to the airport with a taxi driver who spoke a little English. He took off on different streets than the other taxi traveled (via the freeway) and we were uneasy for a while until he realized we were and explained there had been a bad wreck on the freeway. We were then able to relax a bit as he drove us through more working-class neighborhoods back to the airport.

December 28^th –flew to Miami overnight and landed on the 29th

The next day we were to fly to Miami but the plane didn't leave until 10:00 pm so we requested a late check-out which got us to 2:00. We tried to take an early nap but the front desk called up to ask if we were checking out late--duh!! We had arranged that the night before with the front desk. This hotel is right across the street with the only thing between us and the airport is the taxi and bus ranks---surely, they understand that people staying here want to sleep before or after flights at odd hours. After 2:00 we waited down in the Holiday Inn Lobby--attractive, wifi available, with comfortable big chairs--until we felt it was time to check-in across the street. Flight home over night was again bumpy, but not as bad as the flight down. Still way too cramped with leg space to ever really get comfortable enough to sleep well.

Our flight got in about 6:30 in the morning and our systems were on Rio and Chile time, so we "think" it is 9:30. All suitcases made it back ok after we taped the big one with a 1/2 roll of duck tape--just to be sure, since we were going through Miami airport again. We also put some duck tape around both sides of the other tapestry bag.

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