March 4 Day 17
The breakfast at the hostel was good and we spent the morning dropping off laundry and getting a sim card. The guide book and government website say that foreigners must register their phones online and wait 5 days for approval but our little shop didn't seem to worry about that. Violation of Chilean law #2. They spent a good 20 minutes on our phone and only charged us $4, pretty good service.
I booked us a better place for our last 3 nights in Santiago and we headed to the subway to get our BIP cards to use the metro system. Then it was off to La Moneda, the presidential palace as it was one of the few attractions in the city open on a Monday. To visit the palace, we would have to book 3 weeks in advance and so that wasn't happening. Underneath the palace was an art installation that focused on hoses in Chile over history. There was also a show featuring pictures of market vendors and a room of oddities from the animal kingdom.
We walked up a long pedestrian mall and kept trying various ATMs, none of which would work. On some of then I got a blue 404 screen which is not what one expects. The mall ended at Plaza De Armas where we visited the cathedral and then headed back.
We dined at a local Italian place which had tasty zucchini cilantro soup for Meg and amazing wild mushroom ravioli with truffle oil for me. Meg also had garlic pasta, craving blandness.
Back at our room we had another good night of sleep. Meg found some Youtube channels featuring Winnie the Pooh stories read by Stephen Fry and Judy Dench for mental comfort food.
March 5 Day 18
Our last day at Chile Pepper. Before we left, Meg was stretched out on the bed when what looked like a ladybug crawled down her stomach. A last tick! I picked it up and gished it and it was full of blood. Violation of Chilean law #3, no bringing animals into the country.
Checking my e-mail, I saw a series of fraud alerts and found that the reason I couldn't use any ATM was that my withdrawal request exceeded my daily limit. Easily fixable, so we were able to take out money now, the only annoyance being the $13 service charge that Banco De Chile applies.
We packed up after getting our laundry and put our bags into storage as we couldn't move into our new place until 2 pm and had to check out of our old one by 11 am. We headed downtown to look at the highly recommended Human Rights Museum, beside Parque Quintas Simple. We took a quick detour into the park, there was security at the entrance and all foreigners had to sign a book before entering. There were museums in the park and it went on for 6o hectares. The bit we rested in was shady and well-used but a little concretely, with large paved walkways and a cement-lined and really murky artificial lake.
Like most museums in Santiago, the Museum of the Memory is free. We paid a few dollars each for the audioguide which had more than 70 info stops. The first floor was all about monuments and judicial processes set up since the Pinochet regime. The second floor was about the coup and violations by the dictatorship. It included the names of all of the disappeared, survivor testimony and the government processes that created the culture of fear. There was video, newspaper images, documents and items made by prisoners. The museum was very well curated and didn't shy away from brutality but also didn't get gratuitous about it. A very interesting thing was the constant references to Sept. 11, which for them in 1973. It has a different meaning here, just like the word "America" refers to our hemisphere, not jut the US, in South American countries.
Refreshingly, the topo floor focused on protests during the regime and its eventual downfall. he sheer number of protests were amazing, considering that everyone involved in these events would be risking not just their own lives but those of their extended families. The 80s were a more active time for protest, eventually leading to a democratically elected president in 1990. Surprisingly absent from a museum with so much information was the American involvement in installing Pinochet and Thatcher's protection of him from the European court. Maybe those were just missing from the English translation.
We headed back to our hostel to move our bags to our new place and Meg was up for a 30 minute shlep so we asked Francisco to call us a cab. We were told it would be 30 minutes for a taxi. While we waited we found out that one of the desk clerks at the hostel was a Venezuelan who was "volunteering" in exchange for room and board. The taxi driver then didn't turn on his meter and said it was a flat $50 CDN ride. We told him we weren't going to the airport. I guess our hostel assumed this instead of supposing we were going to another residence.
The taxi driver was cool with that and we made it to our new place with our host, Pimpo. The place had a nice courtyard and the room had more space and a kitchenette but was very compact. We settled in, I went shopping and around he neighbourhood etc. while Meg rested. I grabbed some empanadas and Meg reheated yesterday's pasta and we watched some Youtube together.
The breakfast at the hostel was good and we spent the morning dropping off laundry and getting a sim card. The guide book and government website say that foreigners must register their phones online and wait 5 days for approval but our little shop didn't seem to worry about that. Violation of Chilean law #2. They spent a good 20 minutes on our phone and only charged us $4, pretty good service.
I booked us a better place for our last 3 nights in Santiago and we headed to the subway to get our BIP cards to use the metro system. Then it was off to La Moneda, the presidential palace as it was one of the few attractions in the city open on a Monday. To visit the palace, we would have to book 3 weeks in advance and so that wasn't happening. Underneath the palace was an art installation that focused on hoses in Chile over history. There was also a show featuring pictures of market vendors and a room of oddities from the animal kingdom.
We walked up a long pedestrian mall and kept trying various ATMs, none of which would work. On some of then I got a blue 404 screen which is not what one expects. The mall ended at Plaza De Armas where we visited the cathedral and then headed back.
We dined at a local Italian place which had tasty zucchini cilantro soup for Meg and amazing wild mushroom ravioli with truffle oil for me. Meg also had garlic pasta, craving blandness.
Back at our room we had another good night of sleep. Meg found some Youtube channels featuring Winnie the Pooh stories read by Stephen Fry and Judy Dench for mental comfort food.
March 5 Day 18
Our last day at Chile Pepper. Before we left, Meg was stretched out on the bed when what looked like a ladybug crawled down her stomach. A last tick! I picked it up and gished it and it was full of blood. Violation of Chilean law #3, no bringing animals into the country.
Checking my e-mail, I saw a series of fraud alerts and found that the reason I couldn't use any ATM was that my withdrawal request exceeded my daily limit. Easily fixable, so we were able to take out money now, the only annoyance being the $13 service charge that Banco De Chile applies.
We packed up after getting our laundry and put our bags into storage as we couldn't move into our new place until 2 pm and had to check out of our old one by 11 am. We headed downtown to look at the highly recommended Human Rights Museum, beside Parque Quintas Simple. We took a quick detour into the park, there was security at the entrance and all foreigners had to sign a book before entering. There were museums in the park and it went on for 6o hectares. The bit we rested in was shady and well-used but a little concretely, with large paved walkways and a cement-lined and really murky artificial lake.
Like most museums in Santiago, the Museum of the Memory is free. We paid a few dollars each for the audioguide which had more than 70 info stops. The first floor was all about monuments and judicial processes set up since the Pinochet regime. The second floor was about the coup and violations by the dictatorship. It included the names of all of the disappeared, survivor testimony and the government processes that created the culture of fear. There was video, newspaper images, documents and items made by prisoners. The museum was very well curated and didn't shy away from brutality but also didn't get gratuitous about it. A very interesting thing was the constant references to Sept. 11, which for them in 1973. It has a different meaning here, just like the word "America" refers to our hemisphere, not jut the US, in South American countries.
Refreshingly, the topo floor focused on protests during the regime and its eventual downfall. he sheer number of protests were amazing, considering that everyone involved in these events would be risking not just their own lives but those of their extended families. The 80s were a more active time for protest, eventually leading to a democratically elected president in 1990. Surprisingly absent from a museum with so much information was the American involvement in installing Pinochet and Thatcher's protection of him from the European court. Maybe those were just missing from the English translation.
We headed back to our hostel to move our bags to our new place and Meg was up for a 30 minute shlep so we asked Francisco to call us a cab. We were told it would be 30 minutes for a taxi. While we waited we found out that one of the desk clerks at the hostel was a Venezuelan who was "volunteering" in exchange for room and board. The taxi driver then didn't turn on his meter and said it was a flat $50 CDN ride. We told him we weren't going to the airport. I guess our hostel assumed this instead of supposing we were going to another residence.
The taxi driver was cool with that and we made it to our new place with our host, Pimpo. The place had a nice courtyard and the room had more space and a kitchenette but was very compact. We settled in, I went shopping and around he neighbourhood etc. while Meg rested. I grabbed some empanadas and Meg reheated yesterday's pasta and we watched some Youtube together.
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| Meg in front of La Moneda. |
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