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Published: January 21st 2013
Santiago
The Catedral Metropolitana de Santiago, on the Plaza de Armas, was built between 1748 and 1800... it's like really really old!After leaving El Calafate (and paying the $38 Argentina Pesos or $7.50 AUD departure tax!) we arrived in the familiar city that is Buenos Aries. This place was beginning to feel like home as this quick change of plane was our forth stop in the capital of Argentina. We had an hours wait here before we got our flight to Santiago.
We arrived into the Chilean capital with some of the best (or worst, depending on your personal opinion! 😉 turbulence we have ever experienced; not quite the oh-my-goodness-we-are-going-to-die type turbulence, but it did get very bumpy there for a little while. We were greeted at the Santiago airport by the news that we had to pay $93 USD each to enter the country (despite the fact that we were in Puerto Natales, Chile, the day prior!). Oh well, it was better than the $160 USD the lady in front of us from the States had to pay! We caught a minivan to our accommodation, Aji (Chilli) Hostel, which was in the suburb of Providencia and not too far from the centre of the city. Our first impressions of Santiago were really good; the area around where we were staying
Santiago
Palacio de la Moneda (1805) - home of the national mint from 1814 to 1929 and current residence of the Chilean president. seemed really nice - clean, bright and green. Providencia is a residential neighbourhood with many large parks filled with big beautiful trees and sculptures and a number of decorative old buildings. We could even make out the snow covered Andes in the distant background (behind the relatively thin smog haze that Santiago is unfortunately know for). We dropped our bags off and went out to explore the neighbourhood. We went for a walk in a park that runs next to the Mapocho River, the main waterway in Santiago. There were so many people out using the pedestrian paths for running and bike riding, and we even stopped to watch an outdoor karate class that was happening in the middle of the park! We returned to the hostel to take advantage of the fact that they offered not only a free breakfast, but also a free dinner! We sat at the table only to be confronted by a strange Kiwi lady who started her side of the conversation with "Oh your from Tasmania, me and this guy from Queensland were bagging out Tasmanians just last night..."!! Needless to say we were not impressed and the conversation with her went no further
Santiago
The Chilean Bicentennial Flag behind the Palacio de la Moneda. It is massive! In fact, it's 27 meters long and 18 meters wide! than that (in fact, it was probably the best 'you're an idiot' look we have ever given someone... she really needed it!). The night was soon redeemed when we sat with some other Aussies, a couple from Melbourne named Leanne and Keegan, who had recently become engaged. We had a great night chatting with them about travel (they were 'couch surfing' around South America) and working in the area of Health Care (they were both physiotherapists), and we also shared how our marriage proposals occurred as they were keen to share their story.
We woke to a beautiful sunny day and headed off to do a "free" walking tour of Santiago. This tourism idea is in the style of the "free" walking tours that a available in Europe, where at the end of your tour you tip the guide whatever you feel is appropriate. Our guide was a young guy called Philipe, who was clearly passionate about his city and the history of his country. It was a great way to get our bearings and get a little of the history of the city. The tour just confirmed our feelings on Santiago; it is a clean and bright city
Santiago
The selection of seafood at the fish market. that has a nice feel to it despite its typically horrific history. We were told of the days back in the 1960's, 70's and 80's when the army and government would kill protestors and bodies were dumped by helecopter into the ocean, the rivers and even up in the Andes mountains! It was hard to imagine this sort of behaviour when you look around the city today. Towards the end of the tour we stopped at a really nice cafe for lunch and tried a glass of the pisco sour, a national drink made from pisco (a type of grape brandy made in Chile and Peru), lime juice, sugar syrup, egg white and ice.
The next day we got up early and headed out to explore the city a little more. We also went to the fanciest post office I think i have ever been in; it is in an old french neo-classical palace on the Plaza de Armas in the centre of the city. After posting a box of souvenirs home, including 4 pairs of Havanas from Rio (we suspect it ended up costing us more to post it home than the actual value of its contents!), we
Santiago
Renee making sure that only the best strawberries are chosen after we had finally decided what fruit to buy. went to the near-by cathedral and a market that had been set up in the plaza. For lunch, we decided to hit the fish market that our Santiago guide Philipe had told us about. The market was pretty impressive, with so many types of seafood being kept fresh on ice; mussels, prawns, scallops, clams, sea urchins, crabs, squid, eel and so many different types of fish, including salmon, king fish, travalla, mackerel and baracota. One of the stall owners showed us how fresh the shell fish were by tapping their opened shells to get them to close up. There was one particular stall that had massive headless sections of fish that at first glance looked a lot like dolphins! We were told it was sword fish, but we were not 100% convinced looking at the way the tail would have sat. Anyways, we moved on from that thought and had lunch at a little place on the edge of the market. We had seafood soup and some traditional Chilean fish, both of which were very tasty. We headed back into the city via some amazing fruit and vegetable stalls; we bought a kilo of strawberries for $2 that were the
Santiago
The gates to the entrance of Cerro Santa Lucia (1875). size of small apples and lasted us for a couple of days! We walked through some more parklands towards the hilltop park called Cerro Santa Lucia (Saint Lucia Hill) for a good look over the city. This park is known to the locals as a very romantic place, so romantic infact that they now close the park at 7pm. After picking our path through the numerous couples laying around on the grass, we walked to the top of a small fort/castle (the highest point in the park) for views over the city. As we left the park we noticed a little indigenous market selling all sorts of goodies, so we spent some time hunting out the perfect Santiago souvenir. Our next destination was a fair walk away so we stopped in at another place Philipe had pointed out that sell the best ice-cream ever; we had raspberry mint, chocolate hazel nut, strawberry and chocolate orange. We arrived at Cerro San Christobal with just enough time to make the walk up this Santiago landmark, a high hill on the edge of town that has a huge statue of the virgin Mary at its highest point. After being told that it was
Santiago
The fort/castle at the top of Cerro Santa Lucia. closed, a slight miscommunication, we walked up to the top of the hill to watch the sun set over the city. This place has amazing, with views over all the city, the neighbouring suburbs and up into the surrounding snow-capped Andes range. We made it back down just after dark and it was only a short walk back to the hostel for dinner and a chat with an Azerbaijani backpacker named Hassin - that was a first!
The following day we had planned to head out to a place called Valparaiso, a small city on the coast about 2 hours from Santiago. Before we could head out on this day trip, it was time to continue the time honoured tradition of logging on to do the Yahoo Fantasy NBA Draft with David Wierenga and Pete Stone (after 10 years I couldn't bail on you guys now!) Two hours later it was time to head off to Valparaiso, a port city that has a unique attraction in the form of funicular elevators (trolley cars on very steep inclines, also called ascensors). These were built in the period between 1880 and 1910, with a limited number having been restored for tourist
Santiago
Sculptures on Cerro Santa Lucia. Not sure exactly what they were there for but they looked pretty cool. operation. The first ascensor we caught travelled about 170m at an angle of 30degrees to a lookout over the city. Valparaiso is built on a number of hills that overlook the ocean, its old town cobbled streets lead off into many paths and stairs that head up into the narrow hillside lane ways. It was quite an interesting place; the city is a little worn looking but that is part of its charm. Like Montevideo, there are a number of very talented graffiti artists that have left their mark around the old streets. As we were wondering around the waterfront weYuhggygyg randomly ran into Jan (John), a Dutch guy who we shared a dorm room with back in Barra da Lagoa, Brasil! He was still searching for the perfect wave but had been distracted by the charm of this section of the Chilean coast. We left Valpariso late in the evening to head back to Santiago.
When we arrived back in Santiago, our priority was to buy our bus tickets to our next destination, a place called San Pedro de Atacama in the north of Chile. It was harder than we thought as there were no direct buses for
Santiago
Plaza Italia, Santiago. the following day, so we ended up with tickets to a place called Calama, which is the biggest city near San Pedro. From there we were told to get another bus to San Pedro, which sounded easy in theory as it was a short 2 hours journey from Calama. We headed back to our accomodation to get ready for the next step, and a 23 hour bus ride...
We really enjoyed Santiago; its green leafy parks and laid back atmosphere was a nice surprise from the smog filled city we had been warned about. It did feel a little rushed in the end but we had a deadline in the form of the Inca Trail on November the 11th that we had booked months ago, so that ment we were on a timeline. We still wanted to spend a fair bit of time in San Pedro as there were a number of "must do's" on our list for this dry part of the world. Onward to the Atacama Desert...
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