March 6 Day 19
We had a nice breakfast in our room and just hung out in the morning. Meg still needed rest at noon so I headed out on my own to check out the funicular to the top of a big hill graced by a giant Virgin Mary and the Pablo Neruda house.
I decided to walk there, which took about 30 minutes. Along the way I went by the main arts centre, which was aptly described by our guidebook as looking like a rusty cheese grater. I went through several busy squares before I crossed the river, which was a stream of muddy runoff. I then walked through a student area and saw a busy food truck and got a hot dog absolutely smothered in mayonnaise. I regretted my choice when I found both a shawarma stall and a burrito joint just one block further along the way.
There was a 20 minute lineup for funicular purchases because the ticketing system was slow and people were having long, involved discussions about the 6 or so choices of ticket types. I purchased a one-way ticket, figuring that if they sold such a thing there must be a path down that could be taken.
The bottleneck for the lines was at the ticket booth so there was lots of space in the funicular itself. It was made up of two cars linked by a cable that went in opposite directions and followed the same track other than a bubble in the middle to keep the two cars from crashing into each other. The ride was smooth and the views progressively more impressive as we ascended.
The views at the top were worth it. Santiago is a very large city surrounded by mountains so the view from a steep hill in the middle of it will be impressive. At the top was the giant statue as well as a small chapel and an area covered in old candle wax and memorabilia from people praying for their loved ones.
After a few minutes of looking around I decided to find the path down. The roads didn't descend at all and I wandered around for a bit before finding a map that showed several bikes-only trails heading down and one pedestrian one that seemed to go in the right direction. I found a directions post that seemed to mark a path as a pedestrian one and followed it for about 30 minutes, but the path neither ascended nor descended so I couldn't get down off the mountain nor back up to the funicular and I could see that a large iron fence went along most of the bottom of the hill. It was hot and I wasn't encountering anyone but occasional construction workers laying pipe so I started going down dusty switchbacks to get down from there, but they always ended in warning signs saying that pedestrians couldn't cross because of construction danger. Eventually I decided to go through a barrier and talk to some construction guys who said it was alright to go down the road after a truck finished coming up, which would be in a few minutes. While we waited he offered me some ice cold water, which was very welcome as I left my water bottle back in the room.
After the truck passed I thanked my hosts and headed out of the construction entrance and found my way down. Close to the funicular was the Pablo Neruda house. I went in with an audioguide, this time only having 11 stops. The house was interesting, full of knick knacks, Diego Rivera paintings, surrealist furniture and rooms based of the interior of ships. It was nice but not exceptional and about 30 minutes is all it took to see everything.
I grabbed a soda and headed back to the room where Meg was sick of being sick and decided to take the antibiotics out travel medicine consultant recommended. We then went for a walk through the neighbourhood looking for rice and soup for her. We found a sushi place that had both and I tried Chilean sushi.
What is up with Chilean food? There and empanadas everywhere, but other than that pizza, sushi, hot dogs and gelato are the order of the day. The two sushi places close to us were combination sushi/Peruvian places. We thought it was an odd combo, but Peru has ceviche so they are two cultures that eat raw fish and there has been a Japanese president of Peru so the links are many.
Chilean sushi comes with no wasabi or pickled ginger, just a bottle of soy sauce and a shallow bowl of oyster sauce. One roll and cooked chicken and cream cheese wrapped in rice, rolled in bread crumbs and deep fried. The other had salmon and cream cheese in rice with an avocado outer coating. I had to scrape out the sweet cream cheese with my chopsticks to make them at all edible and was jealous of Meg's excellent looking chicken soup.
We walked around for a bit in the neighbourhood and saw a lot of people sleeping on cardboard and discarded mattresses on the street, just in one area. We wondered if they were Venezuelans like in Columbia but later on a cab driver said that they were Chileans. They all kept to one small area and had a sense of community, maybe staying close to the local hospital. After the walk we were ready for sleep.
March 7 Day 20
We got up and the drugs seemed to be doing the trick, Meg was feeling better. We did laundry and then headed out to find stamps and visit some museums.
At the main square we found the post office with the help of a police officer and found a huge lineup, but another officer told us there was a separate office for buying stamps, but it was closed for lunch. We left and walked down busy pedestrian streets toward the museum and stopped for lunch at a nice sidewalk patio place that had excellent microbrew beer and tasty chicken and rice.
The museum of Bella Artes also contains the contemporary art museum. The building is gorgeous with huge open spaces, female figure pillars a la the Acropolis, ornate metalwork and a big glass bubble for a roof. The main hall displayed sculptural reproductions and everything else was closed except for the contemporary stuff on the top floor, which had some interesting pieces but our Spanish wasn't good enough to get most of the context.
On the way out of the museum I spotted someone sitting on a bench whom I saw in the museum and looked familiar so I went up to him and said, "Peter?"
"Yes..."
"Buckland?"
"Yes!"
He was a gallery owner in the Saint John arts scene and had retired and was travelling with his wife Judy. What a coincidence! We had a great chat, exchanged experiences and were all amazed by the moment.
We headed back, Meg got her stamps and we walked to the Italian place we had been to a few nights before for more excellent food. The pesto wasn't as good as our pasta the previous night but the soup and service were excellent and we got an outside table.
We had to pack our stuff up for our 4:15 am flight the next day so headed back and got to bed early.
We had a nice breakfast in our room and just hung out in the morning. Meg still needed rest at noon so I headed out on my own to check out the funicular to the top of a big hill graced by a giant Virgin Mary and the Pablo Neruda house.
I decided to walk there, which took about 30 minutes. Along the way I went by the main arts centre, which was aptly described by our guidebook as looking like a rusty cheese grater. I went through several busy squares before I crossed the river, which was a stream of muddy runoff. I then walked through a student area and saw a busy food truck and got a hot dog absolutely smothered in mayonnaise. I regretted my choice when I found both a shawarma stall and a burrito joint just one block further along the way.
There was a 20 minute lineup for funicular purchases because the ticketing system was slow and people were having long, involved discussions about the 6 or so choices of ticket types. I purchased a one-way ticket, figuring that if they sold such a thing there must be a path down that could be taken.
The bottleneck for the lines was at the ticket booth so there was lots of space in the funicular itself. It was made up of two cars linked by a cable that went in opposite directions and followed the same track other than a bubble in the middle to keep the two cars from crashing into each other. The ride was smooth and the views progressively more impressive as we ascended.
The views at the top were worth it. Santiago is a very large city surrounded by mountains so the view from a steep hill in the middle of it will be impressive. At the top was the giant statue as well as a small chapel and an area covered in old candle wax and memorabilia from people praying for their loved ones.
After a few minutes of looking around I decided to find the path down. The roads didn't descend at all and I wandered around for a bit before finding a map that showed several bikes-only trails heading down and one pedestrian one that seemed to go in the right direction. I found a directions post that seemed to mark a path as a pedestrian one and followed it for about 30 minutes, but the path neither ascended nor descended so I couldn't get down off the mountain nor back up to the funicular and I could see that a large iron fence went along most of the bottom of the hill. It was hot and I wasn't encountering anyone but occasional construction workers laying pipe so I started going down dusty switchbacks to get down from there, but they always ended in warning signs saying that pedestrians couldn't cross because of construction danger. Eventually I decided to go through a barrier and talk to some construction guys who said it was alright to go down the road after a truck finished coming up, which would be in a few minutes. While we waited he offered me some ice cold water, which was very welcome as I left my water bottle back in the room.
After the truck passed I thanked my hosts and headed out of the construction entrance and found my way down. Close to the funicular was the Pablo Neruda house. I went in with an audioguide, this time only having 11 stops. The house was interesting, full of knick knacks, Diego Rivera paintings, surrealist furniture and rooms based of the interior of ships. It was nice but not exceptional and about 30 minutes is all it took to see everything.
I grabbed a soda and headed back to the room where Meg was sick of being sick and decided to take the antibiotics out travel medicine consultant recommended. We then went for a walk through the neighbourhood looking for rice and soup for her. We found a sushi place that had both and I tried Chilean sushi.
What is up with Chilean food? There and empanadas everywhere, but other than that pizza, sushi, hot dogs and gelato are the order of the day. The two sushi places close to us were combination sushi/Peruvian places. We thought it was an odd combo, but Peru has ceviche so they are two cultures that eat raw fish and there has been a Japanese president of Peru so the links are many.
Chilean sushi comes with no wasabi or pickled ginger, just a bottle of soy sauce and a shallow bowl of oyster sauce. One roll and cooked chicken and cream cheese wrapped in rice, rolled in bread crumbs and deep fried. The other had salmon and cream cheese in rice with an avocado outer coating. I had to scrape out the sweet cream cheese with my chopsticks to make them at all edible and was jealous of Meg's excellent looking chicken soup.
We walked around for a bit in the neighbourhood and saw a lot of people sleeping on cardboard and discarded mattresses on the street, just in one area. We wondered if they were Venezuelans like in Columbia but later on a cab driver said that they were Chileans. They all kept to one small area and had a sense of community, maybe staying close to the local hospital. After the walk we were ready for sleep.
March 7 Day 20
We got up and the drugs seemed to be doing the trick, Meg was feeling better. We did laundry and then headed out to find stamps and visit some museums.
At the main square we found the post office with the help of a police officer and found a huge lineup, but another officer told us there was a separate office for buying stamps, but it was closed for lunch. We left and walked down busy pedestrian streets toward the museum and stopped for lunch at a nice sidewalk patio place that had excellent microbrew beer and tasty chicken and rice.
The museum of Bella Artes also contains the contemporary art museum. The building is gorgeous with huge open spaces, female figure pillars a la the Acropolis, ornate metalwork and a big glass bubble for a roof. The main hall displayed sculptural reproductions and everything else was closed except for the contemporary stuff on the top floor, which had some interesting pieces but our Spanish wasn't good enough to get most of the context.
On the way out of the museum I spotted someone sitting on a bench whom I saw in the museum and looked familiar so I went up to him and said, "Peter?"
"Yes..."
"Buckland?"
"Yes!"
He was a gallery owner in the Saint John arts scene and had retired and was travelling with his wife Judy. What a coincidence! We had a great chat, exchanged experiences and were all amazed by the moment.
We headed back, Meg got her stamps and we walked to the Italian place we had been to a few nights before for more excellent food. The pesto wasn't as good as our pasta the previous night but the soup and service were excellent and we got an outside table.
We had to pack our stuff up for our 4:15 am flight the next day so headed back and got to bed early.
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| Santiago from the top of the hill. |
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| Neruda's house from across the street, no photography allowed inside. |
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| Bella Artes Museum main atrium. |
Nice post! Can't believe you ran into someone you knew... How long had it been since you'd seen him?
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