Santiago

Spring!

It's getting close to midnight, and traffic has slowed down on 'Bellavista', the avenue hugging the Santiago arts district of the same name. A couple of blocks away from the 'Nomades' hostel night life will be in full swing, but here in the hostel it is pretty quiet. It is not one of the 'party hostels' of which there are a good number in every city and from which we've tried to stay away: at our age sleep is precious when you are on the road, especially if you're still suffering a bit from jet lag.

Our flights from Edmonton to Toronto and Toronto to Santiago on Saturday were uneventful. Security didn't seem to be any tighter than before the Paris attacks, but I'm sure security measures were followed strictly.

We arrived in Santiago a little after noon. We had the address of our hostel and, with the help of a tiny street map we had saved from the hostel we stayed at five years ago, found its approximate location. There was plenty of daylight left to get there, and soon we had located the bus station at the airport. Johann handed the driver the fare, but to our surprise he stopped us and said something we didn't understand. So soon after landing Spanish was still even more of a foreign language than it should be, and will be again in a little while. He said something about 'ojos' (eyes), and pointed to his fare box. Hmmm – what was wrong? And why did he hand us so much change? After a moment it dawned on us: the Chilean currency with its many zeroes had fooled Johann into paying ten times the amount we needed. Luckily the bus driver was honest; we likely wouldn't have noticed until it was too late. It takes a little while to get used to dealing in thousands. A Canadian dollar equals about 500 Chilean pesos at the moment. Johann might have clued in quicker if we had changed money recently, but this was left over from our Chile trip five years ago.

We got off the bus at the 'Pajaritos' stop where we could connect to the metro, a great way to traverse distance in a big city. Some names still sounded familiar: Estación Central, Los Héroes, Universidad de Chile ... Our final station was Baquedano, from where it was only a short walk to our hostel.

Once we had checked in we walked to the centre of the city, the 'Plaza de Armas', to find an ATM. We enjoyed the walk through beautiful 'Parque Forestal' to get there, and were clearly not the only ones doing so. Everywhere on the lawns couples were intertwined in tight embrace, oblivious to the world around them. It's spring here, and they were making the most of it. The Plaza de Armas was filled with families with kids playing ball, eating ice cream – 'Helados, helados' – sounded from street vendors with their little carts everywhere. Kids in swim suits splashed in the fountains, others had their picture taken on life-sized stuffed ponies or looked up to the mounted policemen, eager to pet their horses. All was as it should be. We had a beer in one of the many outside restaurants, watching the world go by, happy to be back in South America.

Today was a slow day, too. We slept in, then made our way to the bus terminal at the Universidad de Chile and bought a ticket to Mendoza, Argentina for tomorrow. Later in the afternoon we decided to walk up to the 'Virgen', the statue of the Virgin Mary overlooking the city from its highest point in the Parque Metropolitano, about 860m above sea level (the city itself is about 500m lower). It was a much longer walk than we had anticipated since a security officer stopped us from taking one of the many small walking paths. He pointed out the danger to people who so obviously looked like foreigners – this, too, part of being in a big city, unfortunately – and put us on a busy walk/bikeway. 

 

All day it had been hazy, as so often in this city of five million people. The Andes could just as well not have been there. The valley is prone to smog, and we were very lucky five years ago when, just in time for us to leave, the blue sky formed a beautiful backdrop to the dazzling display of the snow-covered mountains. Today, we couldn't see very far even from that high up, but on the way down the sun appeared briefly just when it was setting, basking the city below in a warm glow.

Tomorrow morning we'll leave for Mendoza, a six or seven hour drive depending on the time we need to cross the border. We plan to spend a couple of days in the wine capital of Argentina before moving on to destinations so far undetermined.