We are officially back from Chile as of one week ago, and it was awesome! We had a great time traveling, sightseeing, and just being together for such a long time. As per our over-organized personalities require, we took notes along the way and we thought we would share an abbreviated version of our trip. So, here we start the Best of Chile 2012:
We started out in Santiago on Good Friday – a big mistake because when they say it’s a holiday, they mean it very seriously. In America, banks and state offices close, some private companies take off, some restaurants and groceries close early, etc. In Chile, everybody is off – restaurants, groceries, tourist offices, even some taxi drivers. We stayed in Providencia – a wonderful, safe, clean, quiet part of the city. We hung out in the many city parks, people watching (an impressive amount of exercising) and gawking at the sheer amount of stray dogs (they look both ways before crossing the street). In an attempt to not burn a day, we met up with a free walking tour of the city that was a great way to see a lot of the different areas even though most things were closed to visitors. We rode a ‘funicular’ (automated trolley up a steep incline) to the top of Cerro San Cristobal (very large hill in town with a park on top) and watched sunset go down on the sprawling metropolis.
Our second day in the area, we became decidedly confused. The Chilean population has a very metropolitan look because of a large number of Chinese and European immigrants into the country historically. O’Higgins is their main figure from the fight for independence and most main streets are named after him; a ton of architecture has traditional Bavarian flare to it; and blonde headed-blue eyed-fair skinned people have no idea what you are saying to them in English. In addition, their ‘Spanish’ is out of control – super fast, drop all ‘s’ out of words, drop some ending syllables, and replace most words with a slang word you have never heard. We spent this day rafting the Maipo river in the Andes Mountains. We had a crash course in Chilean river navigation, and then took on the class 3 rapids! It was a great time, and we could’ve spent another hour or two on the river. That afternoon, we went hiking to the Cascadas (waterfalls). It was a nice hike through the woods and up the mountain, but everything was dried up since they had just finished year 3 in drought mode.
We spent Easter Sunday at the National Cathedral because A) most Santiguans that we talked to were not religious and had no idea if anything was happening on Easter; B) it’s a beautiful church; and C) we read online that the archbishop would be doing the mass. Since we are not anywhere near Catholic and didn’t know better, we sat through a mass (all in Chileno that we barely understood) by the bishop and were underwhelmed… then the archbishop’s processional started so we stayed for that too (his message was in proper Spanish that we could understand). The house was packed to see him. Afterwards, we strolled through the historic area of the city around the cathedral, walked around in the Mercado Central and ate lunch there (delicious!), and hung out in the city parks again (this time on Cerro Santa Lucia, a beautiful park on a hill made from prison labor).
We flew to Easter Island for a few days (a future post), and then came back to Santiago. Our flights were wonderful on LAN airlines, but we got in late to the city. We got to the hostel in Barrio Brasil (different part of the city than before) easily enough, but found full on adult bed bugs upon checking the beds/linens – GROSS! So we left. We stayed at some random place in the city that ended up being clean, but we were so freaked out that neither of us slept well. Dodged a bullet. We were up early the next day, hiked through the city with our stuff to check in to the previous hostel we had stayed in (super wonderful and clean), and then we were on our way to the Concha y Toro vineyards (one of the best in the country). We took the metro out along with some buses, and the Chileans were all incredibly kind and helpful. Even though they couldn’t speak English and we could barely understand their mangled Spanish, they got us on the right bus and off at the right stop! The tour at the vineyards was great – we saw most of the grounds, although it started to rain and we didn’t finish the tour in the actual vineyard part, and their cellars. Their Casillero del Diabl0 cellar is most famous because the owner told the locals that the Devil lived there so they would quit sneaking in to steal wine. We tasted some great wine on the tour, and then stayed to eat lunch at the restaurant on the grounds where we were able to do some more tasting. We bought some wine that you can only get at the winery (that somehow made it back in one piece!), and then headed back to the hostel for some needed rest.
We decided to take a day trip out to Valparaiso, an important sea port for the country, on our 5th and final day in the Santiago area. We made the 1.5hr trip by bus on a wonderfully comfortable double-decker where we lucked out and got front row, top deck seats for some amazing views of the countryside. Valparaiso is a city built into a steep hillside surrounding a bay – a city of staircases and ‘ascensors’ (like a funicular). We toured La Sebastiana (an eccentric house turned museum of the poet, Pablo Nerudo), the cemeteries, the main Prat pier, the naval plaza, and some very interesting parts of the city. Many wealthy citizens built ‘paseos’ (promenades) in front of their mansions which was a great way to view the city. The city itself is dirty/sketchy compared to Santiago, there is a definite smog problem (could not see across the bay to the other shore), and a problem with graffiti. To prevent ugly tagging, homeowners and businesses hire artists to paint their walls with interesting murals – a beautiful graffiti solution! We bussed back to Santiago with the sun setting over the vineyards which was a great end to the city. That night we ate at a delicious brew pub in the city and jammed out to some old 80’s classics. Chileans LOVE 80’s music – rock, ballads, synthesizer dance, all of it.
And that ends Part 1: Santiago. We’ve added a smattering of tourist photos for blog purposes; a “best of” album for all of our photos should show up on FB soon. Stay tuned for Part 2: Easter Island, Part 3: Atacama, and Part 4: Patagonia.
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