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Santiago, Chile - September 2005
Wandering around Santiago for a day.
The Journey Down
First afternoon in Santiago
Last Day in Santiago
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The Journey Down
After saying good-bye and exchanging email addresses with a few folks, it was
back into a taxi for the trip back to Santiago. Curiously, the ride down was
even more expensive than the ride up (!?). So apparently I hadn't overpaid
too much for the ride up, and they definitely had a captive market for the
ride down. I could have saved money by calling my previous driver, but I
didn't want to wait much longer.
I took a few pictures on the way down, but it is hard to do justice to the
switchbacks. You really have to see those in person.
First afternoon in Santiago
I arrived at my hotel in Santiago (the
Hotel Plaza San Francisco
). It was a great hotel, centrally located. I dropped my huge bag off in my
room, and wandered out into the city.
I headed towards the Plaza de Armas, a broad square in the center of the city.
Santiago was beautiful, both for its surroundings (the Andes) and its
architecture. It had a combination of modern buildings (some very unpleasant,
but some that blended better), and an assortment of older colonial-era
buildings.
I headed northeast, through town towards the Barrio Bellevista district. This
gave me some views of the Parque Metropolitano, with the large statue of the
Virgin Mary at the top of the hill (Cerro San Cristobal).
Barrio Bellavista was a cool part of town. There were a number of fashionable
shops and restaurants. Sadly, none of the restaurants were open (I had
arrived after lunch but before dinner), so I had to wander around for a bit
longer.
I had dinner at a very average restaurant. My
Lonely Planet
guidebook had highly recommended it, but I found it very touristy. If you go
to Barrio Bellavista, look around a bit before settling on a restaurant.
There are a lot of good options.
Last Day in Santiago
After dinner, I took a cab back to the hotel, and crashed for the night.
Early the next morning, I got up and stowed my bags at reception. At
breakfast, I ran into a few people I knew from Valle Nevado--small world!
The first thing was a walking tour of some of the main government buildings in
the center of town. I didn't take many pictures, mostly because it was hard
to get good shots in the tight streets, but it was an enjoyable walk.
There was a small demonstration at the Plaza de la Constitution, but I
couldn't quite make out what it was for. The police nearby didn't seem too
perturbed.
At this point I visited the Museum of Pre-Colombian Art (Museo Chileno de Arte
Precolombino), which the guidebook recommended as one of the better museums in
Santiago. I had to agree--it was fascinating.
Some of the descriptions were fairly tortuous. For instance, this was the
caption for a large urn: the artifacts were "impressive for their ability to
irradiate [sic] the mystery of the sacred." I think a straightforward,
unmodulated description would have been more powerful.
But the artifacts themselves were amazing to look at, more for what they told
of the cultures behind them. One depressing fact: most of the timelines for
cultures ended around 1500, right when the European conquerors arrived.
Every pre-Copernican culture has myths about how the sun travels around the
Earth, and one Andean myth was particularly memorable: the Sun Lord Kin Ahau
soared in the heavens during the day. At night, he travelled through Xibalda,
land of the dead, fighting other dangerous gods in his passage through the
underworld. In the morning, he would emerge victorious in the East.
In another section, there were relics from cultures whose terrifying gods wore
suits of flayed human skin.
On one wall was a sample quipu, a series of knotted cords used for
communication and record keeping. The display consisted of a cord, and the
many smaller cords hanging off it, wrapped around so that it filled a large picture frame.
The geek in me was impressed: it was a simple, recursive structure, with
obvious data encoding. It almost qualified as an example of a space-filling
curve, and I wondered what its fractal dimension would be.
Apparently I'm
not the only geek who has encountered the quipu
.
There were several large, intricately carved statues for the dead. A
poorly-executed funeral could have disasterous consequences. If not properly
buried, the deceased would be trapped by a witch, and become an
evil spirit.
At one point, I found a collection of golden spatulas. How cool! I was
looking forward to telling my brother, since anyone who has seen
UHF is familiar with
Spatula City
.
However, these spatulas weren't used for turning eggs. They were used by
royalty, for purging their stomachs before ritualized consumption of
hallucinogens. Wow.
If you've read
The Third Chimpanzee you are already familar with some crazy rituals of the Mayans, and this was
definitely in the same vein.
After the museum, I walked outside, back to the Plaza de Armas.
I went to the Museum of National History. It had brief coverage of
pre-Columbian times, and focused more on colonialism and the birth of the
Chilean nation. I was a little burned out on museums, and there were a lot of
schoolchildren running around, but several of the exhibits were worth a look.
I particularly liked the colonial exhibits.
From there I walked over to Cerro Santa Lucia, a large park (and hill) in the
center of town. It was gorgeous, almost baroque in its ornamentation.
Near the top, they had a small garden dedicated to Darwin. How cool is that?
The very top of the hill was crowned with a small turret.
As I headed down, I passed a large cactus with hundreds of engravings.
I had a sandwich at a small vendor's cart near Darwin's garden, and rested a
second.
North of the top of the hill, there was a good vantage point, looking north
towards Cerro San Cristobal.
Walking back down to street level, the park was very green and secluded,
even though it was in the middle of the city.
From there, I walked back over through Barrio Bellavista again, to the
funicular railway. I bought a ticket, and was soon on the train heading up
the hill at what feels like 45 degrees.
From the station, it was a short climb up to the top of the hill.
From there, I took the funicular back down, and caught a taxi to the Museum of
Natural History. Whenever I visit a large city, I try to visit its Museum of
Natural History. Some of my favorites are in Paris and Washington DC.
Santiago's was housed in a beautiful building, but the exhibits hadn't been
updated in a long time. Even so, the exhibits on Chilean ecology were
amazing. Chile spans some curious habitats, from the world's driest desert in
the north (even though it's right on the Pacific!) to the cold, wet Tierra del
Fuego.
If (when) I return, I'll take more time. I'd like to rent a car and drive the
extent of the country.
I left the Museum just as it was closing. According to my guidebook, the
quickest way back to the hotel was via taxi. However, I walked over and hit
upon a brand new metro station, so new that my guidebook didn't know about it.
I bought a ticket, and was whisked to within a block of my hotel on Santiago's
subway.
I had an hour to kill, so I wandered down to the hotel bar. I ran into the
same people I'd seen in the morning, from Valle Nevado. They were Brazilians
who were also just killing time. They were due to fly back to Brazil the next
morning. Fortunately (like many people in South America) their English was
excellent, so we talked for a while.
From there, I collected my bag and flagged a taxi. The taxi driver and the
bellboy spent a few minutes figuring out how to get my bag into the car.
Finally, the driver managed to find a way to fold down a seat to fit the
snowboard bag. The front passenger seat had to be pushed way up front, so I
sat in the back seat.
We had a bit of traffic in Santiago, but before too long we were clear and I
arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare. Lounging in the airport
I met yet another person from Valle Nevado (!).
After a few long flights, and a few hours spent in limbo at the Dallas
airport, I returned to Seattle.
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