First Impressions of Santiago

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I then set out to explore the main historic centre and take some photos of the architecture. I found my way to the central bank via the subway and exchanged my US dollars for Chilean pesos. The Chilean people apparently are nicknamed 'the Swiss of South America'. They are supposedly efficient people with a reputation for being shy, introverted and for being security conscious. I noticed that today. I felt very safe when walking around especially as there are officials dotted around so that if you get lost you can always ask the way. I'm finding it easy to go about this part of my trip and it seems hassle free. I created my own walking tour around the famous buildings in the city centre – most buildings are centred around the Plaza de Armas – there I saw the Municipalidad, Museo Historico Nacional, the Correo and Cathedral Metropolitana and the Casa Colarada. The buildings are nowhere near as old as European buildings - a building made in 1900 would be considered as ancient whereas we have churches dating back to 1500s at least. In Chile they have to rebuild their buildings after each earthquake so preserving buildings is impossible.

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