We left Argentina in the rear-view mirror and were off to Chile. The day started off on a great note with us successfully ordering a cab over the phone in Spanish. Even though I was terrified of the Count as a small child, I can probably thank Sesame Street for being able to count to 10 in Spanish so addresses are in my wheelhouse. Our bus journey to Santiago would take us over the Andes along most of the same route we took to get to Aconcagua the previous day.
The bus was only scheduled to take 6 hours but big unknown was the border crossing. We had warnings of how bad it could be, but in the end it wasn't much different than going through customs on an airplane with baggage. When we got to the crossing, we all got off the bus like back when we were in school then walked single file into this warehouse type building for passport control. When we were done, we all got back on the bus, then the bus pulled into the warehouse. We took our "carry on" bags and stood in this room as our "checked" luggage was unloaded form the bus and put through an x-ray and then reloaded onto the bus. We then had to go place our "carry on" bags through the same x-ray. Of course mine got stopped. I was worried it was for all the electronics I had in there with various power cords and adapters an the like. Nope, it was for the plastic bag containing a half eaten bags of chips (crisps) and a bag of peanuts (peanuts) we had been saving to snack on. All in all, it was pretty smooth and we were out in under 2 hours!
However, we didn't realize that the border crossing time was not factored into our estimated arrival so we ended up about 2 hours late to our airbnb and our host had already left. A big thank you to our taxi driver for hanging around to make sure we had it figured out with our host and the reception of the building where his apartment was.
After getting our stuff settled, we decided to head out for some dinner. Our apartment complex had 2 entrances. One on the very busy streety and one side entrance that opened up into a beautiful neighborhood. Restaurants and shops dotted the street with vendors selling their arts and crafts in makeshift stalls. Very reminiscent of San Telmo but not as old.
Barrio Lastarria at our doorstep.
After a short walk around, we settled on dinner at a Peruvian restaurant, Tambo. I had my first Pisco sour (way more on pisco later) and the dinner was very good and filled us up for a day of exploring tomorrow.
This is exactly what it looks like and they did it again to a different cop right after they finished up here.
We got a great start on our first full day in Santiago. We had seen great reviews of this free walking tour that started a couple blocks away from us in the main square of Plaza de Armas, so we gave it a go and we are very glad we did. I guess everyone else read Trip Advisor too because we ended up with around 30 people in our group being led around by our guide Franco. He was a great guide full of mostly correct facts (we fact-checked) delivered in an entertaining way. His storytelling made the difference as he was able to inject some personality into the sights we were seeing.
Plaza de Armas
We learned of Santiago's founding by the Spanish, their wars with the Mapuche, the independence from Spain, the dictatorship of Pinochet. It was a very good way to learn about the history of both Santiago and Chile
La Moneda, the presidential palace
Not everything we saw was of historical importance. Some things were cultural. As Franco put it to us, Chileans like sweet things so if a drink isn't sweet, it's probably not Chilean. This explains why coffee was not always a popular drink in Chile. To fix that problem, they decided to adapt a Hooter's-like approach: Let's take something people don't care much for and have it be served by beautiful women. And just like that, cafe con piernas, translated to coffee with legs, was born. Cafes were coffee is served by women with tight dresses and high heels mixed with a little bit of conversation. And yes, some eventually evolved into cafes with blacked-out windows and bikini-clad baristas.
We also saw the opera house (not as nice as Teatro Colon), but the highlight was the restaurant across the street. Legend has it that when then-President Bill Clinton was in Santiago for a performance, he was a bit thristy and stopped in this restaurant and had a coca-cola to quench his thirst. Well the owner was so excited, he renamed the restaurant after him and "La pica de Clinton" was born! The owner still has the can and glass used on display!
La Pica de Clinton
All in all, the tour was great and we both saw and learned a lot. The tour went for 4 hours and ended at the base of San Cristobel, which was a large hill in the middle of the city with a shrine to the immaculate conception on the top. Since it was hot (the forecast has been yellow circles the entire trip), we decided to put the "fun" in funicular and take that up to the top to see the views, which did not disappoint.
A view of Santiago from atop San Cristobel
After a busy day of seeing a lot of sights, we retired to our apartment to prepare for the next day
-nick
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