Santiago and the 3 Ss

Sun, sightseeing and safety of course! What were you thinking?? So I'm starting this post with a bit of a rant. Not as big a one as it would have been had I not had 2 fairly strong pisco sours this afternoon mind! It's based on S3: Safety.
In April 1997 I moved to London. Since then, give or take the odd years of travelling, living across the pond and my 'wilderness year' in Bracknell I've lived there ever since. Not long after I moved there I was the victim of the one and only crime I've ever been a victim of in the whole time I've lived there: I had my purse stolen out of my bag, because it was a bag that didn't zip up. It was a salutory lesson that I learnt very quickly and very well so it doesn't just encompasses the arm furniture I carry. It also helps to describe why I am the person for whom the description 'sensible' was developed. That's not to say I couldn't be a victim of crime in the future, but it is why I do everything in my power to prevent it. And is why I'm now feeling very frustrated/unnecessarily unsettled by being in South America thanks to those who seem so determined to warn me about danger here that it's almost as if they want me to fall foul of it! So, on arrival in Santiago, where I visited between Sunday and today (Thursday) I don't feel that I've been able to fully enjoy the city because I've not been on my usual level of alert, I've been on almost panic level. And you know what, it's unnecessary. It's always important to be careful, I'm not foolish enough to think that because I'm travelling I wear an invincibility cloak, I'm going to some places that aren't overly safe. But I'm careful in London (let's face it, this is one of the most dangerous cities you can live in) and I'm careful in South America.As such, from this point on, I'm going to go back to my usual leave of care, tailored to where I am located. There will always be people who want to do you harm, but if this trip as taught me nothing else, it's taught me that most people you meet don't want to do that, they wish you well and are nice. And so anyone else who wants to warn me again about dangers, please remember this, you don't need to; just know that I'm not taking unnecessary risks. Rant over.
So, on Sunday, I travelled from Mendoza to Santiago. I'd booked the 9am bus as I'd been warned that the border crossing could be a bit of a nightmare. I'd chosen that bus as it was due to arrive at 4pm and with warnings of border crossings of up to 6-7 hours I didn't want to be arriving too late. Julia, who had been in the dorm with me in Mendoza had coincidentally booked the same bus as me and so we headed off to the bus station together. Much of the route in Argentina had been that which I'd done with Kira earlier in the week but it was wonderful seeing it again and here is an extra picture that I took between Aconcagua and the border.
Fortunately the journey gave me time to psych myself up for the (nonexistent) wait! Unbelievably we arrived at the border just before 12.30pm and had cleared it by 1pm! It was the fastest crossing I've heard of and was followed by a drive on the most amazing road down the mountain ever!!
I arrived in Santiago and Julia kindly gave me a spare Bip! Card (equivalent of the Oyster card) and had exchanged some of her spare Chilean pesos for my Argentinian pesos so I was able to charge it up for my metro journey to my hostel. Having safely arrived, I then went on a mission to take out some Chilean pesos which turned out to be the start of 'Mission: extract currency from an ATM' and I sadly failed at it that night. Feeling somewhat frustrated, bizarrely I was cheered by the fact that my phone had tried to connect to Eduroam! For those not connected with a University, this is a wifi network we can join at other Universities but wasn't something I expected in Latin America! 
The following morning I decided to do my favourite thing of the walking tour and Marisa, who was one of the women in my dorm room was also heading there and meeting some friends she had made on a walking tour through the Andes prior to her arrival in Santiago and so we went together. On the way, we stopped at a Banco de Chile bank machine, but it also wouldn't give me any money... 
The tour started in Plaza de Armas
Where there was this statue to the Mapochu, which I did like but was more amused by the woman sat in front of it who wouldn't move and must now appear on so many people's photos!
And finished 4 hours later at Pablo Neruda's house
Calling in at the Presidential Palace
Where this statue of Portales still bears the evidence of the fight which saw the end of Salvador Allende's rule of Chile (the president prior to Pinochet) in the bullet hole in his face...
 The National Opera
Barrio Lastarria where I was fascinated by this building that is painted, not actual balconies!
And the Telefonica Building that was obviously built early in the life of the mobile phone!
After the tour finished, I went and bought an ice cream that is as big as it looks!
Before heading into Bella Vista, the area in which I was staying, to check out some of the amazing street art...
That evening I had arranged to meet up with Julia and so we met later and went for a meander around Avenida Italia where they had some amazing little independent shops where we both could have spent a lot of money!! From there we went to Vegan Bunker and I had a delicious black bean burger
Very much enjoying the meat-free meal! This is Jula!
The following morning I went and dropped off my (most expensive ever) load of laundry (£11!) and on the way back called in at the Centro Gabriela Mistral, a cultural centre where I think they were displaying their equivalent of the Natural History Museum's whale...
That afternoon, I was meeting up with someone some of you may remember from my detour to Bratislava! Diego! 
He, Nacha (his girlfriend) and I spent the afternoon at Cerro San Cristobel. It was a very food and drink filled afternoon! We headed up on the cable car
And when we reached the top had mote con huesillo - a drink made of wheat (at the bottom) with dried peaches that have been cooked in a juice and an empanada de pino, with ground beef, olives and a hard boiled egg. 
The drink was delicious but soooo sweet!
After sustenance we went to see the statue of the Virgin Mary
And the church 
The views from the top of the hill were incredible
But you could really start to see the pollution that is a problem in Santiago, and worryingly gets much worse in the winter.
After this we had cuchufli (pronounced cuchuflee not cuchufly! Apparently a joke on the British who pronounce it wrong!) which are thin wafers filled with manjar - similar to dulce de leche, but can also be unfilled too. They were yummy!
It was a super hot day on Tuesday and so we then took the funicular back down the hill where I said bye to Diego and Nacha and made my way back to the hostel.
That night Marisa and I went out for dinner, aiming to share a dish of Pastel de Chocla, but sadly the restaurant had run out so you'll find out more a out this later and instead I had a piscola (pisco with coke) and a delicious fish soup...
The following day, I said bye to Marisa who was heading back to Uruguay later that afternoon and made my way to the cemetery. I'd heard conflicting reports about the cemetery but decided to go check it out for myself. It was incredible. When you first walked in there were rows and rows of these small tombs
They were all throughout the cemetery, there must have been thousands of them. There were also some larger tombs for families although these weren't anywhere near as ornate as some I've seen
And then there were these smaller graves with metal crosses
It was a very large cemetery! I've included just these three pictures but I was walking round for over an hour! From here I took the metro to the Central Market
Which was beautiful. There was a large fish market behind me from where I took the photo and then restaurants in this part. I had intended to eat here but the smell of the fish and the level of hassling from the waiters to get you to eat in their restaurants kind of put me off so I continued on my meander and headed into the Cathedral
Then wandered round Barrio Londres y Paris
Through the park
And back to Galindo, a restaurant by my hostel where I had Pastel de Choclo!
This is a dish of ground beef, chicken, olives, raisins and egg, topped with ground corn and a layer of sugar which is caramelised. It was strange, but good, and a real traditional Chilean dish. 
When I did the walking tour it had taken about 6 attempts before I managed to successfully withdraw money from an ATM. Knowing it might be tricky to do this outside of Santiago I decided to take more out to cover myself. As such throughout Wednesday, every time I saw a bank I tried to withdraw cash unsuccessfully. It was so frustrating, my card works in stores so I know it hasn't been stopped but I couldn't get it to work in the bank machine. So that night, having had my hostel booking in Valparaiso cancelled and knowing I was likely to need to pay cash in the next location I decided it give it one last shot at both booking a hostel and withdrawing cash... Fortunately I was successful at both (but only for the latter because I used a different card with extortionate fees!). And so I'm now in Valparaiso on the coast. This is a Unesco World Heritage Site so get ready for some amazing street art pictures in my next post!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Entertainment on the go

Another great detour!

Familiarity breeds contempt...