Round The World: Santiago - high rises, smog and the Andes

My hostel in Santiago - room to myself!

I know I’m pitifully behind yet again, but I’ve taken a decision to keep going with the blog where I was rather than where I am. I just can’t skip those memories. So, here comes Chile!

Arriving in Santiago I had 2 missions. First, arrange admin for when my friend JP would arrive in Chile. JP was coming over to join me for about 3 weeks in exploring Chile and Peru and also in hiking the Inka trail in Peru. So things like arranging meeting him at the airport, finding out about accommodation and hiring cars to make our plan of flying to South Chile and driving back up a reality.

Business area in Santiago

Old falling down church

In hiring a car I had to find a rental company and hence got to explore the underground train network in Santiago which was really impressive. I think maybe more so than London or Argentina. The secret was in space. The platforms I went to also looked pretty clean but it may have helped that I never experienced rush hour. I ended up in one of the business areas in Santiago. So there were tall glass buildings and fancy environmentally conscious hotels with grass growing up the side of their buildings. Some streets were lined with nice coffee shops and little lunch places catering for business people. But down the street between the tall buildings and through the haze of Santiago’s winter smog were the snow-capped Andes mountains peering through. It was really rather surreal.

Santiago underground metro

Plaza de Armas, Santiago

My second mission was also to explore a bit of Santiago before JP arrived. So I found that Santiago offered a walking tour like those I had done in Europe. “Free” but based on tips. I was rather surprised to see that the concept had spread to South America. For about 3 hours, the tour took me through a little of the history (which I have to say I have mostly forgotten, but Wikipedia will be my friend if I ever need to recall it in detail).

Government House

Some of the major sights included Plaza de Armas and the Palacio La Moneda (the Government House). I was also told a little about the current protest in Chile regarding the University students as we walked past a heavily poster-ed and closed off University campus. They were protesting about high university fees and that university was not affordable for most people in Chile. I was rather glad the tour included a small mention of this because we encountered a protest later on in the trip and then at least I knew what was going on a bit. We then moved on to a little about Pablo Neruda, a famous poet of Chile who has 3 houses in Chile that you can visit to witness his extreme collection of anything and everything. His houses tend to “resemble” ships to show the poet’s affinity for the sea. The guide told us that one of the books he wrote was an “Ode to food” which the guide recommended reading as it would give you a new love for food. The poet obviously enjoyed eating!

Guards to GH

Besides the poet, the walking tour past through the Bellavista neighbourhood which was full of interesting places to eat or drink and where a lot of students live. This area also had quite a lot of street art. Fancy graffiti which was pretty impressive. Graffiti overseas is not the general scribble on a wall that we get in South Africa. You can see that some of it is art and sometimes possibly commissioned. The tour also suggested that Chileans love their unusual ice-creams. After the tour I made sure to stop at the ice cream shop and I ordered a Mango ice cream (which I didn’t really like cos it was a very chewy consistency for a supposed ice cream) and a rose flavoured ice cream (this was a really yum one and fresh and a little like Turkish Delight in flavour).

Government House from the back

Pablo Neruda's house

Pablo Neruda

Grafitti in the student area

The university protest

I also explored the Cerro Santa Lucia (Santa Lucia Hill) with another woman that had been on the walking tour with me. We took the funicular up the hill and ended up chatting with a couple of Brazilians and going for a traditional Chilean drink with them that was interesting. The drink was non-alcoholic and tasted like watery sweetened peach syrup with wheat and a hole skinned but not pitted peach floating in the liquid. I would put this in the interesting, but maybe not again category.

View of Santiago near my digs

The view from the Santa Lucia Hill was lovely even if a bit covered by smog. The tall buildings of Santiago sprawling out and the snow-capped Andes in the distance. The photos don’t really give justice to the view. Santiago is in a basin virtually surrounded by mountains. I believe in winter the weather patterns create a “cap” that keeps the smog in the basin of Santiago so all view is through a white dirty haze. In summer this cap lifts and the smog clears and I believe that the view is amazing. So, winter while I was there I enjoyed it, but had to use my imagination a bit to think of what it really would be like in summer.