Santiago & the Popemobile

Can you imagine Kurfürstendamm in Berlin, or the Castellana in Madrid, closed to traffic every Sunday from 9:00- 14:00? Well, that´s what Santiago does, it closes the Costanera Norte for cyclists, skaters, and basically anyone that wants to enjoy the kilometre-long central road and neighbouring parks pollution-free!

That was our first impression about Santiago, few cars and not hectic at all! Boy that changed on Tuesday!

As we didn´t have any luggage we weren´t going anywhere. We used the couple of days in the capital city to organize our further trips, do some last-minute shopping & discover Santiago. We didn´t see as much as we expected… Sunday, everything closed, and Monday too: the city of Santiago declared this day as a public holiday given the Pope´s visit in town!

Yes, we did see Pope Francis!

It was quite a coincidence really… we were walking back from running some errands in the city centre, we saw that the main road was closed to traffic again – the Pope was driving one last time through Santiago! Fervent Catholics and curious people waited for the Pontifex. Just as planned, around 19:30 he drove past – quite fast, and very very near. I´m not sure this distance would be even considered by the authorities in Europe! Three minutes later, the Carabineros were gone, street re-opened and the masses of people disappeared in the adjacent streets as if nothing hadn´t happened. Only the street vendors reminded the pedestrians about this visit, having to change strategy from a “2 flags for $500 to cheer for Pope Francis” to “3 flags for $500, a lovely memory from this historical visit”.

We were lucky with our Hostel, it was in the peaceful Providencia area – near to the centre, the Bellavista party district, the huge Mercado de la Vega and top metro connections. We´ve been walking a lot, we love to explore the city by foot! I guess we were the first customers at a gas station that arrived by foot – we were looking for the up-to-date mapas ruteros (road maps) of COPEC, which only sold here!

We had some tasty food, but we have somehow still not understood the eating habits here: why are the portions so huge? Do they have another side dish which doesn´t involve French fries? Kuchen (cake)? Is it possible to fill absolutely anything with manjar (dulce de leche)? Seems so!Read more