Santiago

Chile’s capital sprawls at the mouth of the Rio Mapocho river canyon. The Andes rise abruptly to the east, rolling hills lay to the west, urban sprawl is punctuated by small, steep mounts and the city is covered by an ever-present layer of smog.

Guidebooks and locals alike had described Santiago as an urban wasteland that could be seen in a day or two. Rodrigo, Dan’s kayak guide, went so far as to suggest that we need not even visit the city.

However, our initial impression of Santiago was good. People we met had been very engaging, there were a number of museums and plazas to explore and something to learn about Chilean culture. The LAN Airlines in-flight magazine described a large exhibit of Robert Matta, a Chilean artist at Palacio La Moneda. We were anxious to browse the lapis district where jewelers sell the semi-precious stone widely found in Chile and Afghanistan. The view from Cerro San Christobal was a recommended stop, along with the restaurants in the bohemian Barrio Bellevista district.

The Santiago metro system lived up to its great repudiation. Clean, safe, easy to navigate and with frequent trains. Trains is a bit of a misnomer as the metro is actually linked busses that ride on rubber tires guided by tracks.

We headed to Bellavista in search of lapis. Kate in Plaza Baquedano.

On the way we stopped for lunch at Waldini Café. The restaurant owner grew up in Santiago but spent much of his adult life practicing psychiatry in Italy. He had moved back to Chile due to the more stable economy and to be near family. A sign of the times when people are emigrating from Europe to Latin America.

Needless to say, lunch was delicious.

We found the lapis district, which consists of about 40 small shops with varying qualities of the dark blue stone. Lapis is a sulfur-chloride silicate that is formed when magma comes into contact with limestone in the earths crust. After inspecting 35 of the 40 lapis shops (5 were closed), we found two that struck our fancy. One had very beautiful set stones, the other had rough stones.

Kate reveling in lapis.

On our travels we had heard that a definitive Chilean snack is a “Italiano,” which is a hotdog smothered in spiced tomatoes, avocado and an unknown cream and mayonnaise mixture.

Dan doesn’t think the Italiano has anything on a Chicago-style hotdog, but it beats a ball park frank by a longshot.

We returned to the hotel to wash up and then returned to Bellavista for dinner. On the way pickpockets were on the prowl. Although un-picked, we were learning about the other side of Santiago.

Saturday was our last day in Chile. The hotel had been kind enough to extend our checkout to 3PM, allowing us to tour Santiago in the morning, clean up and head to the airport for our 11PM overnight flight.

We headed to Plaza de Armas, the cultural center of downtown Santiago, early on Saturday morning. Inglesa Cathedral on the edge of the square impressively grand.

A few blocks north of Plaza de Armas is “El Mercado,” where one can find fresh cuts of any meat or fish imagined. The market was easy to find; we could smell it from blocks away.

Shrimp and fish

Not sure what this is, but it looked very fresh!

The market is ringed by small seafood restaurants and we made a note to return for lunch.

A checkbox for every visitor to Santiago is to take the funicular to the top of San Christobal. We crossed Rio Mapocho from the metro station to Bellavista for a third time on our way to the funicular. The Rio Mapocho runs cold and brown in the spring months through Santiago. A guidebook claims that the color is a result of snowmelt runoff.

Headed up the funicular.

A few views from Cerro San Cristobal of Santiago. The smog was fairly heavy and restricted the view of the Andes mountains.

On our way back to the metro station, Kate befriended a llama. Llamas are traditionally festooned with brightly colored earrings, although this one was smart enough to also sport a hat. We saw only a few llamas in our travels in the mountains, but all of them had decorated ears. We suspect the llama decorations are much like branding cattle and allow one to identify members of their herd.

We ventured back to the seafood market for lunch. Kate enjoyed some fresh seabass while Dan enjoyed a “crab cake,” which was essentially a delicious bowl of fresh parmesan crab dip.

By the afternoon Plaza Armas had transformed from the relative quiet we saw in the morning to bustling hive of artists, vendors and various protestors. Students were protesting the “exorbitant” $500 (USD) per month cost of college tuition. Marxists were protesting alleged human rights abuses. Artists were painting scenes from Valparaiso.

We weren’t sure what this group was protesting, but they were well equipped with vuvzelas.

On our way back to the hotel we noted a few fond advertisements from Chile:

Does not translate well.

During our stay in Chile, Nestle had a particulary aggressive adverstising campaign to promote their “Pistashow” ice cream. Dan though the graphic design was particularly comic.

We washed up at the hotel and put on the clothes that we’d wear for the next 24 hours as we traveled home. There still were a few hours in Santiago and we planned to tour air conditioned museums. First stop was the Palacio la Moneda to see the Roberto Matta exhibit. Unfortunately the exhibit was private, for the President and his guests.

Next we headed to Museo Precolumbio, which we had heard was the “best museum in Santiago.” Unfortunately the museum was closed for renovation. Now having broken a sweat, we headed to the Chile National History museum. In air conditioned comfort we toured the highlights of the past few centuries of Chilean history.

Kate headed to the National History Museum.

It was 5:30 PM, with a few hours until we would head to the airport. Despite having only spent 8 hours in the city, we felt that we had gotten a pretty good feel for it.  We found Santiago to be easy to navigate, moderately safe feeling and convenient. Unfortunately, the city seems to lack a real cultural identity and is pretty dirty. We are sure that there were interesting cultural pockets beneath stones we left unturned, but were glad to have spent a few extra days relaxing in Punto Arenas.

Punta Arenas to Santiago

We went out for our last night's dinner in Punta Arenas. Instead of heading back to reliable Marmita, we headed to Restaurante Sotito’s based on a few recommendations. The food was typical. On our way home there was undue commotion in the Plaza. University of Chile had just defeated Liga de Quito Ecuador in to win the University South American cup for first time in 20 years. We followed a parade of revelers down the street.

 Just our luck, a large party was staged in the street in front of our hotel.

Thankfully we got a good night sleep with our alley-facing window and awoke well-rested for the flight to Santiago.

It’s about three hours from Punta Arenas to Santiago. Our plane retraced our steps over Torres del Paine and Pucon. Torres looked socked in by clouds and we were thankful for the fine weather we enjoyed during our trek.

Near Pucon, Volcan Puyehue was erupting violently.

A nice view from the plane of Volcan Villarrica where we had skied two weeks prior.

The plane arrived early in the now-familiar Santiago airport and we easily caught a taxi to our hotel. It’s about 20 minutes from the airport to central downtown Santiago. We arrived at Hotel Galaria at around 3PM. The comfortable hotel was appealing after a four hour flight, but we opted to head out and explore the city.

Penguin Island

Isla Magdalena lies 35 kilometers off the coast of Punta Arenas in the Straight of Magellan and is home to 69,000 mating pairs of Magellanic penguins. That’s about 140,000 penguins on a one-square kilometer island. It’s a very smelly island and every square inch seems to be occupied by a penguin.

We joined a tour to the island on the mighty Nueva Galieia (New Galaxy?).

Kate spots penguin island on the starboard side.

Some dolphins join us for the journey.

No penguin shortage here.

All the dots in the photo below are penguins.

Kate with a penguin.

Dan and Kate with penguins.

Kate with more penguins.

Penguin pairs mate for life and seem to be pretty cuddly with each other.

Penguin chicks. 

After about an hour at penguin island, our eyes had had their fill of penguin viewing and our noses had their fill of penguin scents.

Goodbye penguin island.