Hello from Peru Again!

Day 15: Santiago

Our last day in Chile was nice and relaxing. We slept in and went to breakfast. Today we employed all the secret buffet hacks we learned yesterday, such as where to find the espresso machine (mmm, mochacinos) and how to order salmon eggs Benedict. We also successfully acquired a late checkout, so we leisurely packed up our luggage, watched Stage 8 of the Tour de France, and prepared for an afternoon stroll in Santiago.

Caffeine hunting

Meet me at 9AM on the roof, bring your laptop

We dropped our bags off at reception and embarked on our first quest of the day – to find an authentic empanada. With some internet sleuthing, we found the perfect place to go. Located a couple of blocks southwest of the hotel, off the main street, is a market where locals buy vegetables, fish, and other supplies. Within said market is an empanadas counter.

Iglesia de la Divina Providencia

Found the market

With a constant line, a cash-only register, and no English spoken, we knew Tanita’s Empanadas was the jackpot. We ordered a pino emanada, a traditional Chilean flavor made of ground meat, onions, black olives, and a hard boiled egg. It was delicious and definitely corrected our “empanaditas” error of yesterday.

The real deal

Always reminds me of that Coke ad

After the delicious empanada, we walked a few blocks further west in search of a game store we saw on google maps. Along the way, we passed through a cool mall packed with tiny used book shops (the shops are tiny, not the books). We also saw an incredible number of shops and booths selling vinyl records and cassettes, so if you are trying to fight that new trend of digital music, Santiago has you covered!

We eventually found the game store and the sales guy did an amazing job explaining to us a few different Chilean-designed games (after modestly claiming he knew only a little English). However, without finding a game we really liked – or wanted to translate from Spanish – we moved on to our next mission: finding La Burguesía (the burger place Roberto recommended).

Book fair!

El Señor del los Anillos… Viajes por la Tierra Media!

Window-less bank wall looks like something from an alien invasion

With siesta time approaching, we quickly hoofed our way back northeast towards La Burguesía before they closed at 4PM for the afternoon (to open again later for dinner at 7PM). Larger and more crowded than we expected, a host greeted us and added us to the wait list, explaining that if we made it in, we might need to order quickly so the kitchen could accommodate us. We happily agreed and ended up getting a table in about 10 minutes.

We placed our order and enjoyed the atmosphere of the place. Like us, all the beers were imported, including Goose Island’s 312. Then they started playing Chelsea Dagger on the radio, so we strongly considered just heading down Madison to the Blackhawks game after we finished eating. Speaking of the beers, we did like the amusing 500ml beer glasses that appear comically large, but aren’t much different than a pint.

La Burguesìa is very popular

Roberto was right

“This my friend is 500ml”

With a little more time to wander Santiago, we stopped at a street market and almost successfully avoided buying anything. The chocolate-infused tea was too good to pass up. A good way to kill some time, spend some pesos, and come home with a treat.

Chile actually runs on Dunkin’

Santiago does a great job of keeping their streets clean, and in doing so, it really cuts down on our ability to find dropped and discarded coins. Instead, we found other items, such as a series of painted white ants on the ground (which was clearly a marketing ploy). With time on our hands and curiosity peaked, we followed these little insects into a mall and a candy store. Not tempted by the sweets, we continued to explore the mall and window shop the unique stores.

By now, most places were closed, so we made it back to the hotel to retrieve our bags and relax before going to the airport. The front desk called a cab for us and we were back at trusty SCL in no time. It was a good thing we heeded LATAM’s three hour suggestion this time. It took about an hour to get our boarding passes and check our bags, plus another half hour to get through customs and security. While some aspects of flying in Chile are slow, such as people re-packing their entire bedroom closet at the baggage counter, other parts are super efficient, such as the nifty automatic tray collection gizmo at the security line.

Time to go

Does YOUR suitcase have a suitcase?

At the gate, we ate the extra burger we ordered to go from La Burguesía and discovered it included grilled shrimp and a creamy cheese topping – which was a welcome Chilean preparation surprise (and just as tasty as the bacon and avocado burger we ate earlier)! With our hunger satisfied, we soon passed through the final check points and boarded the plane.

Santiago weather is glorious, can we bring it home?

Back to the USA

All that’s left is our eight-hour flight to Miami, a two-hour layover, and another three- hour flight back to Chicago. Thanks Chile for an awesome two weeks! We’re already planning how to get back someday (heck, we’ll even save our extra pesos).

Day 14: Santiago

Other than the Santiago airport Holiday Inn (and it’s not really fair), we have done quite well with views from our hotel rooms on this trip. Today we awoke to a nice and sunny view looking northwest from our top-floor corner suite at Solace “€ including a visual of our target destination for the day, San Cristobal Hill. But first, we had important things to do, such as catch up on more sleep.

San Cristobal Hill shortly after sunrise

When we finally woke for real, we went downstairs to grab the buffet breakfast (no pancake press, but the fresh mini-donuts were amazing), then back upstairs to check the views from the rooftop bar (empty). Finally, we returned to our room to watch the end of Stage 7 of Tour de France and prepare and our plan of attack for the day.

Setting off by foot toward San Cristobal Hill, we first passed through a public sculpture garden a few blocks from the hotel with a nice collection of large installations and a handful of locals enjoying the park (and dogs, of course).

Other than the smog rays off Sky Costanera, it’s great weather!

There is a long gondola ride to the top of the hill, but we were happy to walk and enjoy the crisp sunny weather along the way. The path allows all modes of transportation – including pedestrians, cars and bikes. By walking, we were able to see a wide variety of activities, including a few guys with a death wish barreling down the hill at crazy speeds on skateboards and three-wheelers. There was also a playground with Inca-inspired climbing pyramids, giant xylophones, and a couple of jugglers who looked like they were ready for prime time.

These guys have their act down

View of Santiago metro area

Meeting the wildlife along the way

After about 45 minutes, we made it to the top and found the statue of the Virgin Mary, inside the Sanctuary of the Immaculate Conception. We walked around the grounds for a while and enjoyed the views of Santiago with the Andes mountains in the background. We ate a sandwich (thanks, Explora!) and a handful of peanut M&Ms for lunch, before also trying a local Chilean drink, the mote con huesillo. Made of peach nectar, whole dried and rehydrated peaches, and cooked husked wheat, the drink looks quite interesting. But, as one might expect since nearly everybody else was drinking one, it is delicious and refreshing.

In the Sanctuary atop San Cristobal Hill

We made it to Mary!

Really, really good

As we left, we chuckled at the length of the line to get on the funicular to go down the hill. Happy to continue the walk rather than stand and wait, we successfully found the trail that passed the Santiago zoo and deposited us into the Bellavista neighborhood.

Down the north side of San Cristobal Hill

3D map which includes (most of) our day’s route

Imagine an artsy Wrigleyville, and you’ll have a rough approximation of the Bellavista barrio “€ home to Pablo Neruda’s house as well as many cafes, restaurants, bars, clubs, and street art. If you want to party until 4AM, this is the place for you. Since we don’t, we walked around the streets and admired the murals.

Bellavista mural

Another Bellavista mural

A mural on a rare linux gym/carwash establishment

Pablo Neruda‘s house is a particular point of interest because it has been transformed into a museum and probably is very cool if you appreciate his poetry. However, with only an hour before it closed, we satisfied ourselves with viewing the portions of the house we could see from the streets. Turned out that was a great choice because we happened to pass by the Modern School for Music and Dance next door, where we saw a group of people practicing a dance in the street. They were so dedicated they didn’t even stop as cars passed through.

Artwork out side La Chascona

Casa Lehuedé

The intersections in Santiago have a couple of different walk signals. One model shows a green man walking, then walking faster and faster until he turns red, indicating you need to stop walking. The other type is not animated. The green walking man blinks faster until he turns red. In either case, red really means stop. There is no grace period where you can still run across the street with time before the light changes. When the walk signal turns red, the opposite light turns green.

Alarmed hydrant if you try to cross on red

Army of bike delivery guys prepare for Friday night

Ready to join the Grand Circus of Invierno

After walking around and not getting hit by cars, we were hungry for a snack and found a bar with a great beer and “empanaditas” deal. The beer was delicious. The empanaditas were more like microwaved cheese ravioli. But they satisfied our hunger. As a result, we have a goal for tomorrow: find real empanadas (apparently, empanaDITas are NOT empanaDAs). Hanger averted, we took a pleasant stroll back to the hotel for the night. The night skies were clear and the city views from the rooftop were great.

Santiago skyline at night

Nighttime view (with San Cristobal Hill) from our hotel

Tomorrow, one last bit of Chile before flying back home. As well as our empanada quest and finding the burger place Roberto told us about.

Day 9: Santiago

With no set plan for the day, we slept in and convinced ourselves to get up primarily in order to make it to the breakfast buffet before it closed. Turns out Holiday Inn has a pretty good breakfast, featuring entertaining and delicious attractions such as a single-button pancake press with a cartoon-like conveyor belt and honey straight from the comb. Plus, they had all the fixins’ necessary for our traditional meat and cheese pile sandwich-making operations, which were subsequently put in motion.

Breakfast? Great! Room window view? Not Patagonian

Following breakfast, we walked thru the bar area and discovered an opportunity for another vacation tradition – watching the Tour de France! (Looks like the Belgians are trying very hard on the early stages this year to impress the home crowds.)

Lotto Jumbo wins the TTT

Rather than lounge around all day (which had a non-zero chance on the list of our potential activities), we decided on an exploratory adventure into the city. After gathering the necessary intel from the front desk, we ventured into the airport and found the small counter that sells the particular SIM card we wanted (mostly for maps) “€ and communicated a bit in Spanish to get the card active. As loyal readers know by now, completing the SIM card challenge is another trip tradition.

Everything works!

Next we found the Centropuerto shuttle bus from the airport to the city (with a few stops in between). It is very conveniently located just outside the hotel. We bought our ticket, found some seats, and rolled out of the terminal toward downtown Santiago.

Very convenient and very blue

From the Los Héroes bus stop, we walked northeast towards the Museum of Precolumbian Art. Along the way, we passed the Moneda Palace (sort of like the Chilean White House, although no longer a residence) and the biggest flag I have ever seen.

Palacio La Moneda

Big flag needs big wind

Turning north on Bandera street, we encountered a heavily-decorated pedestrian street featuring colorful street and wall murals, which paired with the newer glass construction certainly helps liven up the generally-drab colors of the neo-classical stone buildings.

Mario Kart Rainbow road

Tetris road

Colorful underpass

Bolsa de Comercio

Soon we reached the Museo Precolumbino. Before entering, we stopped in the courtyard outside the museum to have lunch. We noticed many dogs along our walk, that appear to be stray, but also have little sweaters on. Turns out, the people of Santiago take it among themselves to care for the street dogs. Many people feed them, give them clothes, take them to the vet, and even house them. They also seem to know when to cross the street. We met Rambo, who was very friendly, and must have been well fed as he wanted no part of the apple we offered him. The pigeons on the other hand were all about our bread crumbs.

Rambo says hi!

Inside the museum (which was free today, bonus!), the rooms display art from the different civilizations and cultures of South America dating back thousands of years. They also had a small interactive section (designed for kids but highly-enjoyed by these adults), where you could learn more about the ancient cultures. We learned how to count using a system of knots, and followed a traditional native dance.

Cool Pre-Columbian Museum entrance staircase

“Before Chile was Chile” exhibit

After looking through each of the sections of the museum, we ventured east through the Plaza de Armas with vendors, people statues, real statues, and found the National History Museum. Smaller and with no English translations on the plaques (although fun to interpret with limited knowledge of Spanish), this visit was pretty quick. Also, the Museum’s last room abruptly ends with a series of newspapers from September 1973 and quickly sends you to the exit. Probably need to go to the Museum of Memory and Human Rights for the rest of the story in the immortal words of Paul Harvey.

Propaganda posters on display at the National History Museum

Next we walked to Cerro Santa Lucia in the Barrio Lastarria district, a small hill with gardens and Castillo Hildago, a castle built in 1816 to protect the city. It is now a popular lookout spot (and event center). We went up the hill and climbed the uneven stairs to the very top where we had a view of the whole city (as the hazy air allowed).

View to the southeast

Santa Lucia Hill rocks! (with San Cristóbal Hill in distance)

Once we found our way down from the maze-like paths of Santa Lucia Hill, we followed Alameda road west all the way back to the bus stop. After paying for a couple ~$3 bus tickets, we enjoyed our dinner sandwiches and a smooth ride back to the hotel. Figuring out the public transportation systems in new cities is quite satisfying. With a couple hours to relax, we’ll be asleep soon and ready for our early flight to Rapa Nui in the morning.