In February of 2015, I got an invitation from my cousin Tom to join him, his wife Kathy, and a few other of their traveling friends on a trip to South America. I leaped at the chance, and after a lot of planning and anticipation, on September 25th, I got on a flight headed for Santiago, Chile.
Tom and Kathy live on Bainbridge Island near Seattle, but as airline connections worked out, I joined up with them in Dallas. Our flight to Santiago was uneventful, but it was a 10 hour redeye and I can’t make myself sleep on planes. International travel is always a trial for me. All of Chile and all of Argentina, where we’d later go, are in a time zone one hour east of the U.S. East Coast. That caught me by surprise. A van took us to our hotel in downtown Santiago, arriving by mid-morning on the 26th. Our first activities were scheduled for early afternoon that day, so we had a few hours to rest. My hotel room was quite nice, and I learned a proper bathroom in Chile includes a bidet, though that doesn’t mean I ever used it.
When we gathered in the lobby that afternoon to begin our touring, there were eleven of us, plus Sebastian, our trip leader, who would be with us for the entire three weeks of the tour. Our welcome dinner wasn’t until that evening, but I’ll show the photo now so I can introduce everybody:
Starting on the near left side of the table, that’s: Kathy, Tom (my cousin), me, Jaye, Paul, and Francis. Now from the near end of the right side: Gary, Jane, Sebastian (our trip leader), Diane, Bill, and Janie. People are generally sitting as couples, though Paul and Diane are a couple, and Francis, Jaye, and I are traveling solo. One of the many great things about our tour company, Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT), is that for most of their trips, including this one, there is no surcharge for traveling alone, though you have hotel rooms to yourself. It was a great dinner, and the restaurant slowly rotated around so we got a view of all of downtown Santiago. At one point, we could see the Andes Mountains from the window:
Back to earlier that afternoon, we got a quick briefing about what the next few days would entail, then we were all treated to a Pisco Sour on the patio of the bar, and had a chance to get acquainted. From then on, almost every new hotel we arrived at greeted us with Pisco Sours. It’s a tasty drink, and each place had its own variation on the recipe. I was thankful for a great bunch of folks to travel with. Tom, Kathy, Gary, Jane, Paul, Diane, and Jaye had all taken OAT tours together before, as well as being connected socially with each other in various ways. Janie, Bill, and Francis had all traveled extensively. I was the newbie, but everyone made me feel welcome and everyone got along great right from the start.
Starting out on our tour of Santiago, we met Nelson, our local guide. (I’ve got a photo of Nelson below.) That’s the way OAT does things: you have a trip leader who is with you for the entire duration, and at each destination you also have a local guide. We made a quick stop in an open air shopping mall to get some local currency:
If I remember right, the exchange rate was about 650 Chilean pesos to an American dollar. Near the mall, was a street performer:
As you can see, Santiago is a very modern, “first world” city. Around the corner, Nelson directed us to a hot dog place called Domino (not the American Dominos pizza). It was lunchtime, and he suggested “The Italiana” as a quintessential lunch for a resident of Santiago. I forgot to take my own photo of the Italiana that I ordered, but here is one from the Domino website:
That is chopped tomatoes, mayonnaise, and avocado on the dog. I have to say, mayo on a hot dog rubbed me the wrong way, but it was an experience. We sat at a counter surrounding the kitchen:
After that, we walked past a band giving an outdoor concert:
and got on the subway that took us to the center of the city. The subway station where we got off had immense murals by a famous Chilean artist:
A lot of Santiago’s architecture has a strong European influence:
The building immediately above is the engineering school of the most prestigious university in the country. Nearby is the Presidential Palace of Chile:
and the other side:
We sat for at least twenty minutes as Nelson gave us a very interesting and animated talk about the history of Chile and its current challenges:
Nearby statues depict some of the historic figures. Jose de San Martin:
and Bernardo O’Higgins:
who together are considered the fathers of the country’s independence. More recent figures include Arturo Palma, who shaped the country’s educational system:
and Salvadore Allende who was a controversial president, but is still revered by many today:
In 1973 the Chilean Air Force dropped bombs on the grounds of the presidential palace to drive Allende from office. This is the side door of the palace that he and his family “snuck” out of.
Many would say things only got worse after that when Augusto Pinochet headed a military junta and many human rights abuses took place.
Across the street from the palace is the seat of regional government:
A short walk away is a financial district. These buildings used to be to townhomes of Satiago’s wealthiest families, now they’re banks:
A bit further on, we came to a pedestrian mall:
Many in our tour group sampled the strong Chilean coffee here; not a coffee drinker, I had some time to explore. There was a duo of street performers nearby:
Continuing our walk, we came to the main cultural plaza of Santiago. Along one side is the Cathedral of Saint Santiago:
Fronting the same square are an old post office, now a postal museum:
and the Museum of Chilean National History:
There are mounted policemen in the square:
and this statue that represents the brokenness of the indigenous Mapuche people:
There will be more about the Mapuche in an upcoming post. On the subway ride back to our hotel, we encountered more public art:
I’m not sure this one would pass muster in the States.
Our next stop on the tour I’m going to keep as a surprise for the next post, but it’s one of the most amazing places I’ve been in my life.
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