In the Begining

After a long flight with several delays we finally landed at Santiago airport around 5 pm. The day was very warm with clear blue skies and a lovely clear view to the mountains surrounding the city.  

Our guide was there to meet us and we were whisked away to our hotel in the city where I could finally lie flat, something I really needed after having an unfortunate stomach bug on the entire flight, it wasn't pleasant I can assure you.

The neighbourhood around our hotel was nice with a few restaurants, shops and a couple of malls. After a lie down and a cuppa tea we went out searching for dinner. It was quite buzzy with a few people sitting down at the outside tables lining down the street, TVs on as chile was playing Argentina in the football. We chose a quieter restaurant that seemed to be a mixture of Mexican and Spanish, no one spoke English but with a bit of finger pointing, a few "si's" and blank faces later our dinner arrived.

Next morning our guide, Leo, came to pick us up at 9am for our half day city tour. The traffic is horrific in this city of 5 million people, 7 million counting the province including 750,000 living in the slums around the hills and also sharing with an estimated 450,000 stray dogs. The dogs were everywhere, most looked healthy enough but a few I saw were a bit mangy. Apparently the city officials go around every now and then and try to immunise as many as possible against rabies, still a problem here.

Our first stop was to the presidential palace where the change of the guards was just about to take place. After crawling one car space at a time we just managed to get there and parked before the marching band came down the street, trumpets and horns blowing, drums beating and precision marching by the cabenerous or police as they are the ones who guard the palace. It was a bit of a performance but we have seen better in Sweden, still - they did their best. We moved on before it was finished and started our walking tour as it was to painful to drive around the city, much quicker to walk.

Leo took us to the plaza de Armas square where we saw the 5th cathedral the Spanish built back in 1752, a beautiful large building with frescos painted on the impossibly high ceilings. We walked over to central markets where they sell fruit, meat and very fresh fish brought straight in from the sea every morning. It was here we tried our first authentic empanadas, having been made here for many years by the look of it. The pastry seems a bit tough but inside was beef, one olive and a bit of hard boiled egg in a steaming hot sauce. Quite tasty.

There were mountains of very fat strawberries and cherries in the fruit section for just over $2 per kilo so we couldn't resist buying a kilo of juicy, flesh 

cherries. After that we caught the subway back to where the car was parked. It was a bit of an experience as it was very crowded but the unusual bit we thought was that the trains have Tyres on its wheels which ran on the inside of the tracks. They also went extremely fast. One woman warned me in Spanish to take my earrings off. I was only wearing little gold sleepers thinking they would be better than any of my slightly fancier earrings but apparently sleepers can be ripped out of your ears just as well as anything else.

There has been a strike on for the past two weeks of government workers which is starting to cripple the city. Just as we were leaving the Drs were threatening to also strike. As we got back to where the car was parked there was a protest march going on which made Leo a bit anxious. He wanted to get out of there before the police brought in the water cannons and tear gas which he thought was a very likely possibility. It also curtailed the rest of the tour as we couldn't get to the places on the itinerary due to the protest so he took us back to the hotel, by which time it was mid afternoon already due to long traffic delays. 

We were on our own after that so we took a taxi from the hotel and went to an area called Bellavista. It's where all the uni students go to drink and party. It's also where the funicular is that takes you to the top of a very steep hill in the park. Due to the strikes, the funicular was closed but as luck would have it, they were going to reopen by 4.30pm. To pass the time away we wandered down the leafy tree lined streets, passed these enormous booze barns and settled on an outside table to watch the passing parade. For $4 we bought a litre of the local beer and liked it so much we splashed out for another litre, by which time we were slightly drunk, it was potent stuff. Sitting at the next table were two guys from Patagonia with long dreadlocks and hippy style outfits. One got out a pair of pliers and a bit of wire and proceed to sculpture a little bicycle which he presented to me with a flourish and said "for you".  I was sceptical as I know nothing is ever given away without some sort of payment expected and when he presented me with a wire flower my suspicion came true. He said for you only 2000 pesos, approx $4. No thanks said I but after some discussion with Jon we thought what the hell, so that paid for his next bottle of beer. 

I had my camera and phone on the table and although I had my hand on them the waiter came along and warned me to put them away as they could be snatched. Well, at least that's what I think he said as he, along with most people here, only spoke Spanish but I got the drift, so it was my second warning for the day.  The last warning came when we were having dinner at another restaurant, once again outside. I had strapped my bag to a pole right beside our table and tucked it underneath with my feet almost on it. As we sat there drinking our cocktails and nibbling on a huge platter of meat, deep fried cheese sticks and other fine Chilean fare that I have no idea what it was but it was tasty, a very nice couple came up to our table. She was very vivacious and friendly and rattled off in Spanish laughing but handed over this piece of paper that was written in English. It had a list of questions like do you have a sister, what does she do for a living, what do you do for a living and so on. By this time our 3 waiters came over to our table and stood there watching them looking very unamused. Finally the head waiter spoke to them, obviously telling them to push off which they reluctantly did. I'm not sure what the con was but we suspect that she was the one to distract us while he was kneeling to fish under the table to get the bag. 

We did manage to ride the funicular up to the top of the hill where there where the most amazing views over the city with the backdrop of the Andes towering majestically  behind. What I thought was a cloud in the sky was actually snow on top of the mountains, winter time would look spectacular. After a very quick and exciting taxi ride home we collapsed into bed, half drunk from the beer and cocktails and still suffering from jet lag.

The next day was a trip out to the old port town of Valparaiso. It was about a two hour drive from Santiago through some lovely countryside. We passed through a tunnel in the mountains and popped out into the valley of fruit. Here they grew all sorts of fruit trees from avocado to apricots to table grapes, citrus and more. At the other end was another tunnel and once through that we came out to another valley, this one was the valley of wines or more commonly known as Casablanca, named after a Spanish queen.

We stopped by a winery, of course and on the recommendation of our guide Leo. We were given a tour of the cellars and shown how they process the wine differently by fermenting it in clay pots instead of stainless steel. At least that's how they use to do it but nowadays they were big concrete ones made to look like clay as the clay wasn't strong enough to hold such volume. After that was the tasting, not cheap at $38 but we had 5 wines and a platter of bread, cheese, olives and olive oils and given a lecture on each wine. We didn't buy any as they were all around $38 each where as you can buy a very decent bottle of wine here in the supermarket for around $8. Still, it was a nice experience.

Which was more than I can say for Valparaiso. The old town is an unesco site so I was expecting something pretty as it's known for its colourful buildings and historic significance. To be frank, I thought it was a bit of a hole. To be fair, due to the public strike which included the rubbish men, the rubbish was piled high on the streets which didn't help with the overall look.  There seemed to be funiculars everywhere, apparently built in the 19 century to join the bottom of the city to the top as it's all built on a very hilly landscape. We did go on one funicular that was built in 1887 and I'm sure that nothing has been done to it since. It was very rattly and shook around, I was pleased when we reached the top safety and I bolted outta there. 

The rich, middle class, lower class and squatters all lived side by side here and as we drove around the hills we saw the most squalled of houses enjoying these million dollar views over the bay and harbour. I'm not even sure how some of these houses managed to cling onto the side of the hills, one little shake of an earthquake and they would all come a tumbling down.

The next bay along, called vin de mare was much more pleasant with boutique hotels, nice restaurants and even nicer houses.  The coastline stretched out with several seaside resort towns, lots of highrises on the sides of the hill and yellow sandy beaches but the Pacific Ocean here is much colder than home so only the braves few would go into it. It's also a lot colder here than Santiago with sea fog very common in the mornings. We stopped by some rocks near the beach that the locals refer to as Michael Jackson . Due to the birds and large sea lions and seal that sun themselves here the top is white but underneath it's black!

It was an early night for us that night as we had to be up by 1.30am to be picked up by 2am for our flight out to Quito leaving at 5am so that was the end of our tour of Santiago.