Santiago

Financial District

We arrived here late last night after an evening flight from Temuco via Concepcion.  As we have an early flight tomorrow morning to Easter Island it made sense to use the Holiday Inn opposite the terminal as our base during our stopover in Santiago.

We took the Tur Bus from the airport terminal to the Santiago Metro (1400 pesos each), and then the Metro to the centre (600 pesos each). The total cost, about $5 US compared very favourably with the taxi fare of about $60 US.

Monument to the Mapuche people

We spent a couple of hours wandering around on our own getting the feel of the place. The pedestrian crossing lights amused us. When it was safe to cross a moving green man was illuminated and a timer began a countdown.  At first his pace was leisurely, but as the remaining time decreased so he began to accelerate. With only 5 seconds safe crossing time remaining you would have had to run faster than Usaine Bolt to match his pace. 

The central square, Plaza De Armas, so called because this is where the ammunition was stored when the city was first founded, is a vibrant place with live music and entertainment. We listened for a while to one particularly good rock band who had attracted a sizeable crowd. 

Earlier in our travels we had met a Canadian lady and her Chilean friend who had recommended we eat at the Folklore cafe for lunch. The entrance was easy to miss, but the instructions we were given, to "stand by the horse's butt and look up" proved reliable. The place was packed and we had to take a ticket and queue.  This was where Chilean people in the know went to enjoy  genuine home cooking and was not at all a tourist spot. This became obvious when after a few hopeless attempts at explaining the menu to us the waitress turned around to the whole restaurant and asked whether anybody spoke English. Fortunately one person was able to translate, and after we recovered from our embarrassment we ordered oven roasted chicken breast with rice. At $8US per head this was a bargain.  There was no live music whilst we were there but the experience was nevertheless memorable

After lunch we joined a Free Walking Tour of the city where the guides make no charge but rely upon tips from their customers, suggesting $10 US per head. This turned out to be good value for money as the tour lasted nearly 4 hours and we learned a lot about the history of Chile as well as Santiago. Bizarrely our guide was a Scotsman, who had done the same thing in Edinburgh, and was now working here, and saving for the next leg of his world tour.

Santiago was founded in 1541 by the Spaniard, Pedro de Valdivia, the guy sitting astride the horses butt. Earlier attempts by colonisers from Peru to cross the Atacama desert from the North had all failed, falling victim to searing heat in the Summer, or frostbite in the Winter, or failing that had been repelled by the Mapuche tribes. There are still conflicts with the Mapuche minority, who feel unrepresented by Chile's Government, and only recently has a statue been erected inthe Central Square, to recognise their importance. Today Chile's population is around 17 million, of whom 5 million live in Santiago. The city is surrounded by the Andes mountains, although this also acts as a pollution trap and the mountains are indistinct due to the smog. When children learn to paint at Nursery School they nearly always draw a mountain in their pictures.

The country suffers an earthquake nearly every week. These are generally less than 5 on the Richter scale and people take them in their stride. However in 2010 a major quake exceeding 8 on the Richter scale caused significant damage, and in Concepcion on the coast 550 lives were lost as a tsunami swept through the city.

Political history has been turbulent with periods of democracy, then communism, military rule under Pinochet, and since 1990 democracy again. The economy has gone from boom to bust several times. A great period of prosperity and expansion followed the war with Peru and Bolivia in 1878 when Chile seized land from Bolivia to the North containing valuable saltpetre deposits, at the same time cutting off Bolivia's access to the sea. Bolivia still retains a 5,000 strong navy on Lake Titicaca and formally writes to the Chilean parliament every year to request its land back. With the onset of the First World War new explosives were discovered and demand for saltpetre plummeted. In the Great Depression of the 1920's when world economies on average fell by 26%, the economy in Chile fell by 75%. More recently the discovery of copper deposits has led to renewed growth and Chile now has one of the strongest economies in South America.

Until 15 years ago Chileans did not drink coffee. Then one enterprising individual opened a chain of coffee shops where the waitresses all showed off their long legs and the concept of "coffee-on-legs" acquired overnight popularity. Another individual took the initiative a step further with "one minute coffee" where, for one minute a day, at the manager's choosing, the coffee shop blinds came down and the waitresses removed all their clothes to serve coffee. One minute later the clothes went back on and the blinds came up. Coffee is now popular in Chile!

After a full day on our feet we were glad to return to our hotel and set the alarm for an early morning flight to Easter Island, one of the eagerly awaited highlights of our trip.