Santiago, Santiago....

...unlike New York New, New York, so good they named it twice, Santiago is so dull I am surprised they bothered naming it once.

Apparently one should always try and grab the reader with a catchy headline, but try though we might, we have struggled with something catchy to write about Santiago.  So I will shoot for honesty.  Cue random Chileans getting angry and flaming me online!






Let's get this straight, any city was going to struggle after New Zealand.  We could have headed to Patagonia and marvelled at the beauty of that landscape.  The Atacama was always on Julia's "must see" list and that also would have stood the NZ test.  However we had missed the rafting season in Patagonia and the Atacama was budget-blowingly expensive.  So what to do?  James, from Melbourne who we met in Doubtful Sound (see Doubtful Sound post) had said we should definitely see Valparaiso, so we did and in the end we liked it.  With some time to kill in Chile and a relatively restricted budget we drove from Valparaiso back to Santiago and hoped for the best.

The drive back was, in fairness, beautiful.  The sun was blazing, the roads were calm, even relatively empty and the scenery....well....it's the South American Pacific coastline for God's sake...what do YOU think it was!  Our guide in Valparaiso (Michael the German Pirate) had suggested a scenic route and so we took it gladly.  We stopped for lunch in a small village on the coast, right by the sea and had a lovely seafood dish looking out across the ocean.

Worrying?

Pisco Sour....

The drink that just keeps giving

Fish Dish?

Proof we went

Neruda's House was on the way back (ish) and I was adamant I'd get to see this place of legend.  I say "Neruda's House" but really it was one of his houses.  Neruda is one of those great figures of the nation's and world literature's history.  Seeing his quirky home on the coast was definitely of interest and I was quite gutted when we pulled up and were told by the woman in the ticket office that we would have to wait 2 hours to get onto a tour and the only way round the place was....on a tour.  The great man's principles and home had been prostituted to a corny way of forcing people to pay for entry and even if we HAD had the time to wait around, I would have refused.

This is a nightclub...like something from
From Dusk til Dawn

Still, the drive didn't stop being cool and we were looking forward to Santiago.  After our initial doubts it seemed that maybe we'd be getting over NZ soon.

Marvellous.

Chile was fighting back.

A nation that had been discovered (Ferdinand Magellan) and founded by accident (Diego de Almagro) was always, I suppose, going to be a struggle.  The Spanish turned up, gold and silver in their minds and realised there wasn't any....DOH!  Indeed, there wasn't much for anyone until someone realised there was loads of saltpetre a key requirement for gunpowder.  So, in a way, Chile was a critical component in the world's arms race and the ability for man to shoot fellow man.  One thing few people realise is that the Spaniards abolished slavery in the 17th Century because of the Mapuche (indigenous peoples) and their resistance to slavery.

Then in the 19th Century Bernardo O'Higgins helped Chile get independence.  At first sight you'd be forgiven for thinking "why is an Irishman putting an 'o' on his first name and fighting in a South American war of independence?"  Well, this explains a little about Chile.....the Europeans here are truly Chileans.  They've been here for so long that the Irish, the Spanish, the British etc they've all mixed over the centuries, keeping their names, but changing nationalities.

So all was well in Chile - things were going great....until BASF discovered how to make saltpetre chemically.  Then we had the 1st World War, an American blockade of ports across the Americas and finally the Panama Canal and boy oh boy, Chile got screwed.  Valparaiso, having been an incredibly rich city, became destitute and rotten within a decade.

A man

Now, Chile is probably the most functional economy in South America.  Efficient, affluent, well run and recovered from the junta of Pinochet, the country is proud of it's status.  Always a little different to its neighbours (maybe because of being cut off by the Andes for so long etc) and seen as the  English of the South Americas, there is a lot to like about Chile.

A flag

A key sight.....fountain at bottom of hill, "castle" at top.....thanks.

And the marks are just in.......Alex unconvinced and Julia
a full "thumbs down" on Santiago

Santiago, however, is NOT one of those things.  As a resident, then I am sure it's a great place to live.

As a tourist it holds no real interest.

Man on horse

Sure there are the usual galleries/museums/religious buildings and ruins.....it's a capital city for heaven's sake, of COURSE it's going to have those things.  But, being a spoiled European, with cities like London, Paris, Rome, Venice, Berlin and Barcelona easily available to us, Santiago is just.....poo.  Ugly architecture, terrible smog (you can't see the Andes which are less than 50km away), a population that don't inspire smiles; I know I'll get into trouble for saying this, but the locals aren't attractive and their fashion sense (I have it on the best authority....Julia's) is lacking.  So not much to keep anyone interested.

40 sheets of fil0 arranged in 12 layers,
Interspersed with Sweetcorn Mayonnaise.
The new Tracey Emin installation at
Como Agua Para Chocolate.
It was a starter.  I had half.  That's it.

The restaurants were either cheesy and touristy or locally crap........though one of them we went to was very good.

Massive lump of melted cheese with your
stuffed chilli pepper Madame?
Also a starter.  Ridiculous

Julia mobbed by photographers!

Me, not mobbed :(

La Percanta.

Typically, we only found the place on our last full day in the city.  In fact, the last 48 hours of our time in Santiago saved it from being totally poo.

We awoke and couldn't be bothered with going out to see the faux castle, so we went for a walk in Bellavista (where we were staying) and as we slowly ambled down Constitucion, we decided to step into La Percanta for lunch.  Cue heavenly food, a menu you'd eat everything on and waiters that were happy, capable, efficient and proud.  Basically the polar opposite of any restaurant we'd been to in Santiago so far.

Wow this was a happy moment discovering this place

I learned this pose in Vietnam

             

Pope John Paul II 

Then we went up the Cerro San Cristobal and had a beautiful view over this efficiently effective city (trying to be positive, work with me) and watched a lovely sunset.  The colours across the sky as the sunlight pierced the ever-present smog were lovely!  Then we went back down the hill and returned to La Percanta and had another great meal.  Next day we left.

For Lovely Sunset, just add Smog

Oi!  Santiago!  No!

The end.

Wondering if I should bother!

Seriously though, what did we do in Santiago?  We spent 4 days in one area that was residential and by association, dull.  To be fair we learned a couple of things.  First, some cheap B&B's are great and welcome assistance to a budget.....second we learned rooms without windows can be depressing!

Nice architecture......we didn't pick the only one
of these to show you, they're everywhere

Julia is at her happiest....

......when directing me where to go ;o)

Possibly the gayest advert I have ever seen!

Don't ask me.....Julia likes this photo, so ask her what this should read!

A Condor

Julia likes this sign and cloud formations :)

I like THIS sign (I don't care about the clouds though).....such a cool insignia for the police

Mountainside Police Station

That minging brown cloud in the middle distance....that's Santiago

We took a wonderful drive up into the Andes and saw a condor.  36 switchbacks (they were numbered) and some 2800m of altitude gave us a wonderful view into the Andes and also back on Santiago.  We couldn't actually see Santiago, because it was covered in a layer of smog so thick, that, well, you couldn't see the bloody great city underneath it!

We met a lovely Australian couple from Melbourne called Mark and Trisha (I know I know, a bit repetitive) and we did some shopping in the Costanera Centre.  We took an open topped bus tour, which was nice.  We stayed 4 days in Bellavista, which is cute and along with Lastarria, the only places you really want to be.

Jumbo....a quality supermarket.  How low have we sunk that THIS is a highlight!!!

            

We went out one night and had a very bizarre coincidence......we met some traders from Glencore who were customers of mine back in the Triple Point Technology days!!!  Yup....they told me how much they hated the systems they used and we had a fun time with them, before we moved on and went to a club where Julia danced like a lunatic to some exceptionally cheesy music.

After NZ, Santiago was a massive slap in the face....a crushing return to the "reality" of making money, working in the rat race, city life and the grind of it all.

To a large extent I left Santiago feeling that it had stolen 8 days of my world travels.

Thanks Santiago.....no.....really, we loved our time with you.