Santiago, Chile

We had a long 800km drive up Ruta 5 to Santiago from Pucon, so we decided to stop about 2/3^rd way up in Talca, to break the journey. Talca is a small town that was badly hit by the 2010 Earthquake which hit 8.8 on the Richter scale, and Talca still bears the scars with many cracked or half demolished buildings. We stayed in a small hostel run by the lovely Miguel and his family. Once again the boys bonded with his son over a love of TV without speaking much of each other’s language.

In Santiago we were very well located in a small two bed apartment in a new tower block in the heart of Santiago (from Chileapart). Our first day we wandered down to the Plaza de Armas to get some dinner with Tim before his flight, only to watch large panes of glass come crashing down from an apartment 5 floors above, an interesting welcome to the city!   The Plaza itself reminded us of Leicester Square, so not that great really. We said a sad goodbye to Tim that evening as he whizzed off to the airport for his very long flight home!

The next day the sun was shining again and we decided to just wander and ended up Castillo Hidalgo (a castle) which is on Cerro Santa Lucia (a hill ) with really great views of the city. Then, after wandering through parks, we ended up at Patio Bellavista for lunch, a new outdoor eating plaza with fancy restaurants and shops.

La Chasconna

La Chascona was our cultural stop today, being the house of poet and Nobel Peace Prize winner Pablo Neruda. As you can imagine a house designed by a poet was rather quirky, but as interesting for its role in the coup in 1973 by General Pinochet, whose men purposely destroyed part of the house. Explaining coup and facism to kids was stimulating for the brain.

Then we took a funicular (hill train) that climbs 284 metres up to the top of Cerro San Cristobal, for great views of a city surrounded by the Andes, their peaks dwarfing the City, with the highest being the Aconcagua at 6962m. Unfortunately, this also causes smog to get trapped and the view can be a bit hazy. At the top is an outdoor church where Pope John Paul II led a mass in 1984 and is overlooked by a 22m white statue of the Virgin Mary.

Then it was park time for the kids and we found one they called the ‘kissing park’ as everyone seems to go there for some serious snogging to the boys disgust.   More interesting there was also an outdoor dance exercise class that we watched which looked like a whole lot of fun.

To contribute to the boys education were decided on a trip to the Mirodad Interactive Museum, that was supposed to be great for kids and also a metro trip away.  Ben was dying to challenge himself to get a train ticket in Spanish which he managed admirably only to be flummoxed by the fact that the kids don’t get tickets but have to get through the barriers?  Another lovely Chilean lady came over to help us – they are such a friendly, helpful people!  From the metro station the walk to the museum was quite long and very hot and unfortunately when we  got to the museum it had closed early for New Year! The boys were not impressed. Fortunately a large shopping centre and a sale on Lego made up for it! So what did we do for New Year’s Eve? Well we have to admit absolutely nothing!   We’ve all been so tired recently that we decided to just stay in, not very ‘party’ but suited us.

Street art

If you find yourself in Santiago on New Years Day be prepared, buy food in advance, as NOTHING is open except for Dunkin Donuts!   And the city is a ghost town, so laundry and packing was the most interesting thing we managed to do.

Last day in Santiago, and South America (!!)  we headed down to the Fish Markets at Mercardo Central. Here we found the whole of Santiago having their lunch at the market restaurant that must have had at least 500 covers, but the fresh seafood was worth the long queue!  I had scallops with parmesan, Ben had seafood chupe (casserole), Cameron had crab (his favourite) and Ollie ate Conger Eel and Chips!!