Lake District – Chile and Argentina

Neera 2 Comments

In May this year, I wrote two posts – Santiago – a city of painted crosses, and Valparaiso – a city where creativity is everywhere – on my South America trip in November 2017. Today’s post is a continuation of that series. If you are planning a trip to you Chile, you might find some of the information useful.

After spending three days in Santiago and two days in Valparaiso, we took a flight from Santiago to Puerto Montt. From north to south, Chile extends for 4276 kilometers. Although buses are available on many routes, flights are a better option to cover that kind of distance. 

We are were planning to stay at Puerto Montt for four nights but had nothing booked other than the hotel accommodation.

We reached Puerto Montt quite late in the evening, and by the time we reached our hotel, it was dark. 

Our hotel was overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and for a little while, we were delighted. However, our happiness ended pretty soon when we saw our room. It didn’t even have basic furniture. The side stables were missing, the table lamp was on the floor, and the window was facing the side street. 

The helpful attendant, an older man, brought our luggage to the room, went to the reception and allocated us another room. The second room was spacious and overlooking the sea.

Problem solved!

Not quite!

As it turned out, we made several mistakes in this leg of the trip. I have written them in detail below so that you can avoid them.

A tourist map of Puerto Montt showing the Pacific Ocean. Our hotel was near the stadium on the left-hand side corner.
View from our hotel balcony. Also visible is the bus stop from where we caught the local bus every day.

Mistake Number 1

When we had our bearing in the morning, we realized that Puerto Montt was just a port. It was no place for tourists. Instead, people coming to Lake District usually stay at Puerto Varas, a beautiful town with the snow-capped Osorno Volcano and Llanquihue Lake as the backdrop. Besides, all the good restaurants were in Puerto Varas.

Note: If you plan to visit the Lake District, make sure you stay at Puerto Varas.

The upside of staying in Puerto Montt was that we got a chance to experience a local small-town life that included traveling on the local bus, shopping in a small shopping center, and walking in the local parks. 

Puerto Varas was not far, just a ten-minute bus ride. We were catching the local bus from a tiny bus stop outside our hotel to the central bus station, a fifteen-minute service to Puerto Varas. We could quickly go there for lunch and come back.

Caught on camera. The photo was taken from a local bus in Puerto Montt. 
Chilean are very compassionate for street dogs. I found these boxes outside many shops where street dogs can sleep at night.

Mistake number 2

We hadn’t booked anything other than accommodation — neither for the Lake District or Patagonia. We didn’t even know what was there to see. So we spent the whole day in the tiny office of a travel agent, who spoke very little English.

We booked one tour to Bariloche and three tours to Patagonia. Being the peak season, everything was booked out. The travel agent had to ring several tour companies to find us spaces on our preferred dates. It rained all day that day. That was our only consolation. We couldn’t have done much on a rainy day like that. 

Note: If you are going anywhere during the peak period, pre-book all the tours.

The following day we caught an early bus to Puerto Varas from where we caught the tourist bus to Bariloche. The trip had five legs, three by bus and two by boat. The following map gives a good idea of the rough terrain and the complexity of the tour.

The yellow dotted line shows the bus trip while the red line shows the boat tour.
Osorno Volcano and Llanquihue Lake

The scenery was spectacular, the water crystal clear, mountains so close. We had an amazing lunch at Peulla, a village at the border of Chile and Argentina.

We boarded the bus and drove for two minutes to stop at the Argentina embassy. Our first experience at the border clearance between two contraries (after that, we had several). We were not prepared for the three-hour process. The passengers of several tourist buses had to line up to get their passports stamped. Our luggage was taken out, inspected by Argentian inspectors and dogs, and then reloaded. Any fruit or plant material had to be thrown in the special bins. It was already five pm when we left, and we had at least five hours’ journey ahead of us.

Argentinian Embassy
Our second boat waiting at Pto. Frias
Che Guevara memorial at the changeover of the boat.
Ernesto “Che” Guevara was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, activist, guerrilla leader, diplomat and a major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia in popular culture. Wikipedia

When we reached Bariloche, it was half-past ten. Everyone was tired, hungry, and angry.

When we checked in the hotel and then took to the streets to see if anything was open. We were starving. To our surprise, there were quite a few restaurants still open. But they had hardly any customers.

When you are hungry, you also want to have the best food possible. Without any crowd numbers to guide us, we randomly selected an Italian place and ordered a pizza and a risotto. 

That was the best pizza and risotto I ever had anywhere in the world (even better than the one in Valparaiso).

We were the only customer in the whole restaurant and the waiter, a middle-aged man, had all the time in the world. We started chatting with him. When we got out of the place, it was close to midnight.

We only had one night in the town. We were catching an early morning to Puerto Varas. Rather than going back to the hotel, we walked the streets, window shopping, and getting the feel of the place. Nights are the best time to enjoy a new town; you can have the whole place to yourself. 

The trip back was through the mountains. The Andes were still covered in snow. When we reached the peak, the snow was still a meter high snow, even in the summer. Trees were bare and stood like skeletons. 

Mistake number 3

On the last day in Puerto Montt, we decided to have the most recommended Chilean dish PICHANGA PARA, a selection of meat and vegetables with eggs, chips, and avocado. 

How could you go wrong? 

It was then the most amazing-looking dish. 

That is was where the amazement ended. It didn’t taste very nice. Everything was deep-fried, even the vegetables. 

I wrote most of this post from memory, and there are many things I am missing. It is quite possible I have got some names wrong or made other mistakes, for which I apologize. I will continue to update it.

Next travel post – Patagonia — The End of the World.

Valparaiso – a city where creativity is everywhere

Neera

Valparaiso was more than I hoped for.

We took a bus from Santiago to get to Valparaiso. The two-hour ride was my first experience of Chile’s countryside, and I was looking forward to driving through the famous winery town on the way. Instead, we passed through a valley, hills on both sides, beautiful scenery. And, I fell asleep.

When I woke up, we were already in Valparaiso.

I had booked a classy hotel for our one-night stay in the historic city of Valparaiso, which a commercial hub of freight ships going to North America before the construction of the Panama Canal in 1914. The hotel was advertised as a luxurious casa and was one of the highlights of our stay in Chile. 

The taxi driver dropped us at the end of a street, declaring that he could go no further. The street was blocked with iron pillars. We dragged our suitcases, on cobblestone, for two blocks, afraid that we would break the wheels at the start of the trip.

The hotel indeed was a casa but a century ago. Today it was a world heritage listed crumbling structure. The receptionist led us three levels down from a narrow staircase to a tiny and smelly room. The furniture seemed to have come from a museum – an old hospital bed, a free-standing wardrobe, a white thin-legged table, an old chair, and an ottoman whose cover badly needed a wash.

We guessed we had to put up with it. Thankfully we were there just for one night.

We tried to connect to WiFi, but it didn’t work. Our luggage was still at the reception. We quickly freshened up and went back to the reception.

The receptionist’s name was Phillip. He was a young fellow, very patient with our slowly building anger. He did everything to please us. Although his English was limited, he managed to get his message through.

“I am sorry but, WiFi in our room is not working.”

“Sometimes happens. I check. From mains.” He pointed to the door where perhaps the controls were.

“Are there any tours?”

“Yes, walking tours. But. Too late.”

“Not today. For tomorrow, I mean?”

“Tomorrow, plenty. Ten in the morning. Then afternoon. Three pm.”

“Do we need to book?”

“No. Go to the main square.” he showed all his fingers, “Ten minutes before.”

“Is there any good place to eat?”

“Yes. You like seafood? I recommend this.” He made a dot on the map.

“If you prefer Chilean food, this restaurant,” he made another dot on the map.

“And if drinking. And gourmet food, I recommend this place. Bit expensive but a harbor view. Atmosphere very nice.”

He forgot to mention that the hotel itself served Italian food, which we had the next day and was very nice.

We left the place, letting the receptionist take our luggage to our room and fix our WiFi. Equipped with a map, we set out to navigate the winding cobblestone streets of Valparaiso. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any of Phillip’s dots on the map because he forgot to mention the names of the restaurants.

Instead, we found an Italian place with Trip Advisor sign on the door. It had the best bruschetta and vegetarian pizza I had ever eaten.

When we came back, Phillip informed us, “I couldn’t fix WiFi in your room, but I have good news for you. You have three rooms to select from where WiFi is good.”

“Good, let’s have a look.”

The first room was the same as before, tiny, but its window faced the street rather than the harbor—a big no from me.

The second room had a spiral staircase leading to the bathroom and the window still facing the street. No again.

I prayed, let the third room overlook the harbor. It did. Not only that, it had its balcony. The room was the biggest, almost two adjoining rooms with a lounge and a third bed. The only problem was, the shower screen in the bathroom was broken. Furniture was still old style. I opened the door to the balcony, and two mosquitoes flew in.

What the room lacked in appearance, it made up in views. This photo from the balcony says it all. We took it.

Art Everywhere

The following day, after a breakfast of runny scrambled eggs, homemade cake, and black coffee, we got out of the hotel from the back street. The narrow road was as ancient as the hotel was. Cobblestoned with open drains. Locals were sitting on the steps soaking in the morning sun.

You can tell you are in a small town when people greet you and have time to ask where you were from. We stopped a couple of times from chatting, but language was a barrier, and we couldn’t converse much.

Just a hundred meters down, about the third house from the hotel, I stopped. It had a large slanting mural of overlapping boxed shape colorful buildings covering the black corrugated wall. It was such a striking and unexpected sight that both my husband and I stood in the middle of the street and watched it in awe. On the floor, to complement the mural, the house owner had placed planters made from old milk bottles cut from the top and painted in sapphire blue.

The whole street was laced with buntings – red, yellow, and blue with diamond-shaped holes cut through them. We were in a fairyland where a naughty wizard had used his wand to do graffiti wherever he went.

The next house had paintings of people on its light yellow walls – people taking photos, in swimming costumes, and with guns posing to shoot.

What struck me most was the house wall where some clever householder had made windows with paint and then hung plastic old Coca Cola bottles turned sideways with succulents growing in them. From a distance, they looked like genuine windows, like in the streets of an Italian town.

Walking Tour

We were joining the walking tour at the main square. We got so engrossed in the mural that we forgot the time. With just ten minutes to go, we started running the winding street without knowing where it was heading.

Huffing and puffing, we stopped a young man at a corner and asked him where the main square was. Like most people, he didn’t understand us—language problem. On top of that, he was a tourist too. He must have guessed we wanted to go to the main square; opening the map in his hand he directed us to a set of stairs that descended to a street leading to the main square. With no time to enjoy lovely mermaid murals along the stairway, we descended the first flight of stairs and got out of breath. There were three more to go.

The main square was nothing like the main squares I had seen. It was enormous. What was striking that it was virtually empty? Unlike Santiago, there was no one there other than some stray tourists.

For a small tip, we joined a group of excited tourists and tour guide Wally (dressed in a red and white striped t-shirt like Where’s Wally in children’s books) from the Valparaiso Offbeat Tour Company. The tour was for two hours and involved eight kilometers of walking.

Wally told us about the main buildings encircling the main square. Iglesia de la Matriz, a historic church with a mixture of classical and colonial design. The Agustin Edwards Building, also known as Reloj Turri, is iconic and serves as a reference point. The Chilean Navy building has French neoclassic design and La Sebastiana, one of the three houses of the national poet Pablo Neruda that works as a museum dedicated to the artist’s life.

We then walked to Valparaiso’s original neighborhood, Barrio Puerto, once one of the wealthiest areas in the world, was now experiencing a decline.

From there, we went to an old prison house that had been turned into artist’s studios. Local artists can hire a prison cell at a nominal fee and make it their studio.

The prison house has lovely lawns, which are now used as children’s playgrounds and local picnics.

The next stops included the cemetery of Valparaiso and the city’s street art galore.

All through the tour, Wally kept us engaged by telling stories about food, graffiti, politics, social realities, and old brothels of the port city.

My only regret was, sometimes I couldn’t hear him correctly. On the other hand, maybe our group was too big.

History

Valparaíso is one of the main ports of Chile. It played the most critical geopolitical role in the second half of the 19th century when it served as a major stopover for ships on the routes communicating Europe with the Pacific coast through Cape Horn. It had a port suitable for large vessels.

There is no certainty about when the city was founded. However, most historians assure that it was in 1530 when Juan de Saavedra arrived in the Quintile Bay.

The city had its zenith until the early 20th century, when it was hit by an earthquake that almost destroyed it.

When the Panama Canal was opened, the sea traffic was interrupted, and the city began to decay.

In 2003 Valparaíso was declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO due to its exceptional testimony to the first phase of globalization at the end of the 19th century.

Now it is known for its artists, writers, and poets. It houses La Sebastiana, the museum house of Pablo Neruda, a Nobel Prize-winning poet.

Transport

There are three modes of transport in Valparaiso.

Elevators (also known as ascensores or funiculars) connect the hills with the flat part of the city. In the beginning, there were 30 elevators, but today only 15 work properly. Between 1974 and 2010, all elevators were declared Historical National Monuments.

We took a ride in one of them during the second walking tour. The ride lasted three minutes, getting in and out five minutes.

Trolleybuses (also known as trole) are buses driven with electricity and go on a set path. They have been around since 1952.

We sat in one of them. It was crowded, and you had to get in quickly because it didn’t stop for long.

“O” buses (pronounced OOOOOhhh bus) that race each other to pick up passengers and are bumpy and scary. Prices are cheap, and they are much faster than walking. One “O” bus route travels through Valparaíso’s hills parallel to the ocean, offering unparalleled views of the coastline and passing some of the city’s most iconic tourist attractions.

This was the most exciting but terrifying trip. The driver drove dangerously in the narrow streets and in a rush to beat another bus to pick up a passenger. He was getting tipped off by someone (to whom he paid some tip) about the waiting passengers. The ‘tips’ were the only way these informers make a living. Wally told us it was sufficient to live on.

Natural Disasters

Valparaiso has seen many natural disasters. Other than the earthquake of 1906, which almost destroyed the city, a great fire burned down 2500 houses in 2014, leaving 11000 people homeless.

The city has a proud history of firefighters. It has the continent’s first volunteer fire department which now has expanded to several battalions representing their different countries. There is a Canadian battalion, a British battalion, and so on.

Second Walking Tour

After a break for lunch, we joined the second walking tour to show us the town’s highlights. It was three hours walking from the port to up the hills.

Valparaiso is built on a natural amphitheater of 45 coastal hills connected by maze-like side streets and endless stairways.

We explored Valparaiso’s wealthy hills of Cerro Alegre and Concepcion and then the poor hills by bus. We walked past bohemian hotels, five-star restaurants, and wild nightclubs and took photos of the rubbish truck with graffiti mosaic pillars and seats.

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Valparaiso is a city where creativity is on display everywhere, where people invite artists to do graffiti on their walls. Where the government supports them by providing low-cost studio space, it is a place I wholeheartedly recommend you to visit.

How to read books

Neera

I am so puzzled by my own reading habits.

For a start, I read six or seven books at a time. I always have a pile of books by my bedside table, usually from different genres, and I pick which one to read based on my mood.

I don’t read from where the bookmark is, but I flick through the book and start reading whichever page or verse catches my attention.

Very soon, I am looking for a pencil, which I have several in the near vicinity, to underline words or phrases or sometimes whole paragraphs.

I skip paragraphs or sometimes pages, but then there are sentences that I read and reread, until their beauty sink in my soul, leaving me in eternal happiness.

At this point, invariably, I stop reading, close the book and start thinking. Sometimes that thinking leads to writing.

The result is that the book doesn’t get read.

I am envious of my writer buddies, who can read books from cover to cover within a week.

Why can’t I stick with a book, finish it and then move on to the next one?

Do I have attention deficiency?

Am I unique in my approach to reading multiple books, or are there others like me?

The goal of reading determines how you read. 

Reading the latest Danielle Steel novel is not the same as reading Plato.

If you’re reading for entertainment or information, you will read a lot differently than if you are reading to increase understanding.

“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed and some few to be chewed and digested.” — Francis Bacon.

While many people are proficient in reading for information and entertainment, very few are willing to improve their ability to read for knowledge.

Mortimer Adler, an American philosopher, educator, and popular author, literally wrote a book on reading — How To Read A Book.

Adler identifies four levels of reading:

  1. Elementary Reading
  2. Inspectional Reading
  3. Analytical Reading
  4. Syntopical Reading

Elementary Reading is a basic reading skill taught in elementary schools.

Inspectional Reading involves systematic skimming and superficial reading and gives you the gist of things. Sometimes this is all we want or need.

Analytical Reading is thorough reading.

Syntopical Reading, also known as comparative reading, represents the most demanding and difficult reading of all. It involves reading many books on the same subject and comparing and contrasting the ideas, vocabulary, and arguments.

This task is undertaken by identifying relevant passages, translating the terminology, framing and ordering the questions that need answering, defining the issues, and conversing with the responses.

The goal is not to achieve an overall understanding of any particular book but rather to understand the subject and develop a deep fluency.

This is all about identifying and filling in your knowledge gaps.

Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592), one of the most significant philosophers of the French Renaissance, was well-read, smart, critical, and possessed a tendency to write in a personal tone — with references to and reflections on — his own thoughts and his own life.

Montaigne considered himself a pretty lazy reader. “I leaf through now one book, now another,’ he wrote,’ without order and a plan, by disconnected fragments.”

His only rule in reading was to pursue pleasure. “If I encounter difficulties in reading,’ he wrote, ‘I do not gnaw my nails over them; I leave them there. I do nothing without gaiety.”

Doris Lessing, a British-Zimbabwean novelist, wrote:

“There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag — and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or a movement. Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty — and vice-versa. Don’t read a book out of its right time for you.”

Patricia Lockwood, an American poet, and essayist have put it this way:

“There’s a way of reading that is like writing. You feel in collaboration… You have a pen in your hand, you’re going along in a way that’s, like, half creating it as you go. And you’re also strip-mining it for anything you can use… you’re sifting for what could be gold.”

I am feeling better now. 

I am not the only one with weird reading habits. A lot of people have different reading habits.

What are your reading habits? Do you start a book and don’t put it down till you have finished it? Or do you read with a pencil in hand and write on the margins.

Or maybe you use one of Adler’s four stages of reading a book.

Drop me a line in the comments section.

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Consolations of growing old

Neera

When I turned forty I thought that the awkward young woman in me will now take departure and an experienced wise woman will take its place. After decades of waiting, I have discovered that the young woman in me has long gone but the wise woman still hasn’t made an appearance.

What has arrived instead is an old woman?

Rather than being disappointed, I like her.

I have lost fifty percent of my hair, forty percent of my memory, thirty percent of my eyesight, twenty percent of my hearing and ten percent of my height (I have shrunk at least two inches), but I can assure you that my gains still outweigh my losses.

On the surface, I have gained weight around my waist and wrinkles around my eyes. But what I gained inside makes it worthwhile.

No one can list the consolation of being an older woman any better than the comedian Andy Rooney who said, “As I grow in age, I value women who are over forty most of all. Here are just a few reasons why:

A woman over forty will never wake you in the middle of the night to ask, “What are you thinking?” She doesn’t care what you think.

If a woman over forty doesn’t want to watch the game, she doesn’t sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do. And, it’s usually something more interesting.

A woman over forty knows herself well enough to be assured in who she is, what she is, what she wants and from whom. Few women past the age of forty give a hoot what you might think about her or what she’s doing.

Women over forty are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won’t hesitate to shoot you, if they think they can get away with it.

Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it’s like to be unappreciated.

A woman over forty has the self-assurance to introduce you to her women friends. A younger woman with a man will often ignore even her best friend because she doesn’t trust the guy with other women. Women over forty couldn’t care less if you’re attracted to her friends because she knows her friends won’t betray her.

Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over forty. They always know.

A woman over forty looks good wearing bright red lipstick. This is not true of younger women. Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over forty is far sexier than her younger counterpart.

Older women are forthright and honest. They’ll tell you right off if you are a jerk if you are acting like one! You don’t ever have to wonder where you stand with her.

Yes, we praise women over forty for a multitude of reasons.

Virginia Woolf, on the other hand, highlighted a completely different benefit of old age.

“As one gets older one has a greater power through reason to explain; and that this explanation blunts the sled-hammer force of the blow. I think this is true because though I still have the peculiarity that I receive these sudden shocks, they are now always welcome; after the first surprise, I always feel instantly that they are particularly valuable. And so I go on to suppose that the shock-receiving capacity is what makes me a writer.”

Woolf later used this insight into a beautiful line from Mrs. Dalloway:

“The compensation of growing old…was simply this; that the passions remain as strong as ever, but one has gained – at last! – the power which adds the supreme flavor to the existence, – the power of taking hold of experience, of turning it around, slowly, in the light.”

Do as Kenkō did

Neera

Sometimes our writing is not coherent.

It happens to me a lot.

Little insights come in snippets, and don’t matter how much I try; I can’t seem to connect those ideas into one coherent piece.

It frustrates me a lot.

However, over time I have learned to accept it.

One of my writing mentors once told me, “Writing is receiving. Receive as it comes.”

Then I learned about Yoshida Kenkō.

I first read about Yoshida Kenkō in Isabel Huggan’s memoir Belonging.

Isabel Huggan was trying to finish her memoir but was frustrated for not finding a way to organize her work.

In the last month of writing about her life, Huggan stayed in a friend’s house in Tasmania while her friend was away. She thought isolation might help her structure her book. But she kept on struggling for days, not getting any solution to string together a collection of stories from her life.

Then one night, she spotted a book in her host’s bookshelf — Tsurezuregusa (Essays In Idleness) by Yoshida Kenkō — and she found her answer.

Yoshida Kenkō was a Japanese writer and monk of the fourteenth century who wrote the most studied works of medieval Japanese literature.

While working on Tsurezuregusa, he wrote his thoughts in 243 fragments of varying lengths.

Kenkō desperately tried to connect those essays in some coherent manner.

When he couldn’t do that, he just pasted them on the wall of his cottage in frustration.

He followed a random model of the composition called ‘follow the brush’ — a form congenial to Japanese writers and readers who felt it was a “less dishonest” method to present their thought than trying to connect them using fictional elements.

Kenkō didn’t try to impose any pattern on his pure and honest experience. Neither did he try to transform reality. Instead, he left each thought as it is.

Something a relaxed reader finds more enjoyable to follow and appreciate. In moving from one subject to another, a reader can take joy in tracing subtle links between them.

Making patterns is left to the open-minded reader, allowing an infinite number of variations to occur.

“The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty, in everything, no matter what it may be, uniformity is undesirable. Leaving something incomplete makes it interesting and gives one feeling there is room for growth and improvement. The impermanence of its state provides a moving framework towards appreciation, towards life.” — Kenkō

Isabel Huggan decided to abandon her futile attempt to connect her stories and follow Kenkō’s method.

Later that same night, awake because of the noise of wind and rain slapping against the glass, Huggan looked around for something else to read.

She found Promises, Promises, a book of essays on literature and psychoanalysis by Adam Phillips. And it confirmed what Kenkō suggested six centuries ago.

In a chapter on clutter, I read how a teenage boy dresses each morning by throwing his clothes in a pile behind him and then picking what he is going to wear with his eyes closed. Clutter invites us to make meaning in the absence of pattern. Clutter tantizes us, lures us into a relationship with material in a way that is far more seductive than discernible order. In clutter, you may not be able to find what you are looking for, but you may find something else instead. Clutter may not be about the way we hide things from ourselves but about the way we make ourselves look for things. It is as if a self-imposed hide-and-seek.

— Adam Phillips

Both authors reached the same conclusion.

Sometimes there is no way to put the pieces together.

“It is typical of the unintelligent man to insist on assembling complete sets of everything. Imperfect sets are better.” — Kenkō

Maybe this is what we need to do as well.

Photo by Joshua Medway on Unsplash

Santiago – a city of painted crosses

Neera

I often wonder what motivates a traveler to pick her destination. Of course, television and advertisements play a big part, but sometimes the place itself summons people; otherwise, there was no reason for me to visit South America.

The only thing I knew about Chile when I first set foot in its capital city was that it is a thin strip of land that ends somewhere near Antarctica, literally at the end of the world.

I had never heard of Patagonia or the Fjord of islands in the South or the Atacama Desert in the South.

Yet the desire to see it all was so strong that a visit to three countries ended up mostly visiting Chile.

LAN airways’ flight landed at Santiago at 7:45 pm local time. Just before the plane stopped on the runway, I realized that one of my earrings had come off while sleeping. That generated a frantic search. I looked under the seats, in the pile of blankets, and at the back row, but to no avail.

Without disclosing it to my husband, I abandoned the search and walked with him through the airport’s long corridors only to get behind a wrong line at the immigration check.

We needed to be in a separate line to pay the reciprocity tax.

Payment could be made by credit card only. Two young guys behind us, barely out of college, only had cash. My husband paid for them on his credit card. They were profusely thankful, and so were we. We got some cash for the taxi fare.

It took us three hours to get out of the airport and another hour and a half to get to the hotel, which was way out of the city center, in Las Condes, Región. It was close to midnight when we checked in.

The hotel room had 180-degree views from the roof to floor glass windows. We dumped our backpacks on the bed and went out looking for food. The hotel was new and didn’t have late-night room service.

There was hardly any chance of finding anything open at that hour, but the hotel receptionist told us that a pizza place, two blocks down, was usually open until 2:00 AM.

We set out to find it. It was a suburban area, we weren’t expecting anyone on the streets, but there were plenty of people up and about. I could even hear music that too in English. For a Spanish speaking country, everywhere they were playing English songs.

We found the pizza place and the pizza was delicious but we couldn’t finish it. The waitress, out of habit, packed the rest of it.

There was no point taking it back to the hotel because breakfast was included, and we were going to be out and about the next day. I gave the box to a couple of men outside a shop where we stopped to buy water bottles. I couldn’t understand what they said, but the smile on their faces was worth the kind gesture I made.

Vertical Gardens

The next morning I had a good view from the room windows. The rooftop of the hotel restaurant had a striking roof garden. Once we went there for breakfast, we were greeted by the lush green vertical garden.

Garden at the rooftop, also visible is the vertical garden

We decided to take the metro to the city.

It was quite an experience.

Not being able to read Spanish signboards didn’t help. Which ticket to buy? How to describe the destination?

I asked a girl whether she could speak English. Luckily she did. She told us there were one-ride-tickets and multiple-ride- cards. We bought one ride ticket.

The train had fewer seats and more standing space. I stood by the middle pole when I opened my backpack to take out my reading glasses to read the map and left it half-open.

A lady buried in the crowd caught hold of my arm and gave me some stern instructions in Spanish. I couldn’t understand a word but understood what she meant. She wanted me to close my backpack. I thanked her and zipped my bag.

Moments later, a young man, stabbed me with his finger. He said something in Spanish but I didn’t understand. So he iterated it again, this time, with sign language.

Oh damn! Silly me!

He was telling me to carry my backpack in front.

So far, I was taking it easy. I was even carrying my money belt in the backpack carelessly tucked amongst the other knick-knacks.

I decided to wear it around my waist and empty the backpack of any valuables.

Foolishly I did that on the train in the full view of all commuters.

With iPhone in my hand, reading glasses around my neck, sunnies on my head, a money belt around my waist, a backpack with a spare jumper, water bottle, notepad, pens, and apples on my back, I was ready to see Santiago.

The next challenge was to figure out which station to get off. The hotel receptionist had circled off a station for us, closest to the city’s main attractions. When we showed that to a very helpful morning commuter on the train, he helped us to get off at the right station. When we got off, we were facing Santiago University.

The city center was nowhere in sight.

Plaza de Armas

Guided by the locals and a police officer, we found our way to Plaza de Armas, Santiago’s main square.

Like most of the Spanish towns, Santiago is also designed in a square grid pattern, with Plaza de Armas being the centerpiece.

We headed straight for the Santiago museum, only to find that all museums were closed on Mondays.

So were the gondolas in Metropolitan Park.

Basically, we couldn’t do anything.

We spent the day enjoying the lively street music and performances and local artists, roaming through the central market and having a peek at the Metropolitan Cathedral.

What stood out were the chess tables where anyone can go and have a game with very patient spectators watching over your shoulders.

Plaza de Armas, Santiago

Plaza de Armas, Santiago

Chess games at Plaza de Armas, Santiago

Metropolitan Cathedral

Built-in 1800 Metropolitan Cathedral is the main church for Chilean Catholics. The neoclassical cathedral has spectacular artwork on the ceiling.

Central Market

We wandered through the Mercado Central de Santiago (Central Market), which was full of craftwork. I particularly liked the wooden artifact. Many pieces had Indian influence. I wanted to buy the coasters but refrained. It was our first day, and I was already buying stuff.

Coffee with Legs

In downtown Santiago, a strange phenomenon not to be missed is cafe con piernas or “coffee with legs.” – where skimpily-clad waitresses serve coffee to well-suited businessmen. We managed to find one. It was called Haiti Café. Waitresses wore miniskirts, yellow tops, and unusually high heels sandals. Business people in suits stood at the high bar-style tables consuming tiny cups of coffee. I had hot chocolate, and Vipan had tea. We paid for the beverage, but hugs from waitresses were free.

The Chileans seemed to be obsessed with shoes.

Every second shop was selling shoes. Some streets around the plaza had six or seven shoe shops next to each other. One brand, Pizzeria, had multiple outlets in a single street, all selling the same shoes. Most of the sandals and even the boots had platform heals, some nine inches in height. I couldn’t imagine how anyone could even stand on those, let alone walk. But when I tried one, they were remarkably comfortable.

I found a pair I really liked, but I ended up not buying them. The shopkeeper wanted me to select another pair so that I could have two pairs for $20,000 (Chilean currency). While a single pair cost $17,000. How the hell was I going to fit two pairs of platform heel shoes in my suitcase.

I said goodbye to the shoes and walked away. My husband was relieved.

Probably the best way to see Santiago is Hop-On/ Hop-Off Bus

We bought tickets valid for two days. The bus has about 12 stops. Even in two days, we couldn’t see all of them all. Lucky for us, the starting point of the bus was at the mall Parque Arauco which was walking distance from our hotel.

Parque Arauco is Latin America’s most important mall where the best brands have their outlets. On top of that, it is a center of entertainment, with an open-air boulevard and excellent gastronomical choices.

San Cristobal Hill

It is the first stop off the bus. At 860 meters above sea level, San Cristobal Hill is the highest point in Santiago. There are two ways to get to it; you can walk or take the gondola. Our two day Hop On/Hop Off bus ticket came with free gondola passes, so we used that.

The area surrounding the hill is called Metropolitan Park, and it occupies 722 hectares. It is the largest in Chile. The sky was overcast, and the view was not very clear, but we still enjoyed the gondola ride. We were rewarded at the top with a 22-meters high statue of the Virgin Mary, an amphitheater, and a chapel.

Painted Crosses

This is something I haven’t seen anywhere else. Seems like Santiago artist like using crosses as a canvas. All the way down from the chapel, we came across several beautifully painted crosses. Some of them quite nice.

Funicular

We came down the San Cristobal Hill through the last functioning funicular of Santiago. It was an amazing experience. The slop is almost 75 degrees, and when the two railway cars were about to cross each other, it was quite a sight. A must-do thing while at San Cristobal Hill. Although sometimes funicular may not be working.

Food

I love taking photos of the fruit and veggies in other counties. They always look so much better. Have a look at the tomatoes and asparagus.

Despite the abundance of fresh produce, food in Chile is somewhat bland as few spices are used. On top of that, Chile has to fry everything. The beef, chicken, potatoes were all fried. Chile has the best walnuts in the world.

I traveled to Chile, Argentina, and Peru with my husband in November 2018. I will cover the trip over several posts.

Here is a list of some:

Lake District – Chile and Argentina

Valparaiso – a city where creativity is everywhere

Patagonia – Torres Del Paine

Patagonia – The end of the world