Santiago, Chile

Valparaiso . Santiago. Toronto

Today is debarkation day and essentially, everyone gets off the ship at the same time but peoples’ flights to go home leave at various times even late into the night. like ours. We had arranged a tour in the morning and paid a bit extra to be able to stay at a hotel until our flight leaves at 8:15pm.

We left the ship around 9:15 in Valparaiso and started our hour long bus drive to
Santiago. The countryside looked a bit like desert at the beginning but, as we drove north, it became greener and we saw lots of irrigated vineyards with the mountains surrounding the valleys, very pretty.

A brief history of Chile: Nomadic hunters and gatherers wandered here as early as 10,000 BC. In 800 BC Mapuche settlers began to populate the area. During the Inca period this area became a major hub on the 2500 km. north/south road network. In 1541 Pedro de Valdiva founded the city of Santiago. Although the Mapuche people tried to oust him, the Spanish remained, and Santiago began to grow. Santiago declared Chile’s independence from Spain in 1810. There were many dictator/Presidents, and dark years of executions especially under Augusto Pinochet until 1990. Democratic government was restored under Patricio Aylwyn. However, the gap between rich and poor widened and riots continued through the 1990’s. There were five presidents of Chile during the transition to democracy (1990–2017).

On 17 December 2017, Sebastián Piñera was elected president of Chile for a second term. In October 2019 there were violent protests about costs of living and inequality, resulting in Piñera declaring a state of emergency. Apparently, there was no money in the budget for things that matter to the citizens. -Trams have been stopped due to no funding. Workers were fired at the end of the day and rehired the next day to avoid having to pay benefits. As a result, the core of the city was a hotbed of turmoil with hundreds of protesters in the streets. The worst time for protests was from 6pm and on into the night. Box stores like Walmart, banks and major businesses were the targets for the protests. Graffiti was rampant with messages of discontent, blackening and defacing beautiful buildings everywhere in the central core of the city. Income gaps are part of the reason for the protest. as well as the sense that the government claimed to be right, and the people were not, all added fuel to the fire. We heard all about the riots as we travelled around South America and wondered if we would be able to see anything of Valparaiso and Santiago once we got there.

On the 15th of November 2019, most of the political parties represented in the National Congress signed an agreement to call a national referendum April 2020 regarding the creation of a new Constitution. This brought calm to the country and only time will tell what happens next. As of the writing of this book (in March 2020), the date has now been moved to October 25, 2020 due to the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Our entry to the downtown centre showed lots of people out walking and going about their business in a normal way. They did not seem to be concerned about the riots that had ravaged the city for 2 months. There were over 200 large murals defaced with black spray and they even sprayed marks on private houses to tell others how good the house is to rob. We learned that there is a major drug problem in Santiago, also they used to have 8 hospitals but now only have one.

The city is routinely subjected to earthquakes and there is little to no money for damage repairs. They are worried, but resigned, about the certainty a major earthquake will come in the future, the last of which was in 1906. In the meantime, they often have minor quakes on an average of every 7 years. Of course, earthquakes often cause Tsunamis, but they haven’t had one since 2017. Not a lot of comfort there! It was such a beautiful city and so disappointing to see the downtown area badly covered in graffiti and subject to riots and demonstrations.

When our bus got close to the City Centre in Santiago, our guide, worried about our security, he said that we could stay on the bus to take pictures or perhaps take a cautious walk around the square. Don was probably the first to say, we are walking. It was weird to walk around a beautiful square with lots of lovely looking people and constantly trying to be aware of our environment from a safety point of view, due to pickpockets. At one point, when we were about to cross the street, there were 3 men dressed rather shabbily in black, with headbands, close to our group. There were also two rather scruffy dogs near us and as soon as we all started walking, the dogs went nuts, running over to the 3 men, barking incessantly and trying to chase them away. They succeeded. I asked our guide if the city had trained them to try to protect the tourist, he said no, they just do it on their own. Whatever, it was sure amazing.

Surrounding the plaza there are several old buildings, Correos Chile (central Post Office), Royal Court Palace, built in 1804 for the Home of the Courts of Justice, now the Chilean History Museum. We also saw the Santiago Metropolitan Cathedral built in 1753, a stone monument created to honour the Indigenous People. Also, a statue of a man on a horse to honour Don Pedro Valdivia the founder of Santiago. We boarded our bus and continued to tour the downtown area. We passed the Academia Diplomatica, the Chilean Embassy. We drove out alongside the Mapocho River that flows from the Andes and divides Santiago in two. We saw miles of artwork painted on the walls along the river and also a lot of graffiti. Lots of modern high rises along the river both apartments and office buildings.

We drove up into one of the many hills and saw a lovely residential area overlooking the city.

We then drove to a Chilean Traditional and Contemporary Crafts Center with 140 workshops representing all regions of Chile with their fabrics, stones, lapis lazuli (Chile’s national stone), wood, natural products, copper Mapuche art, Chiloe art, (very vibrant colours) on wood and clay pottery, also wickerwork, jewelry, antiques, wooden toys, weaving and more. It was a great center with good quality crafts, Lee bought a necklace and earrings of Lapis Lazuli (the Chilean sapphire blue stone), and an Alpaca woven shawl.

After our tour, we had a very pleasant lunch at the hotel and then Lee wanted to go for a walk to a nearby shopping plaza. Well it turned out not to be that close and it was very hot. Once we found it, we browsed around for a while and then found a shady spot to rest. Well, Lee rested, and Don fell asleep!

We returned to the hotel and waited until it was our turn to board the bus to the airport. After leaving the customs area we started walking to our gate which was a really long way. I noticed that Lee was lagging behind. I didn’t realize that, because of her hip, she was really in a lot of pain. It only became obvious to me when she stopped a customer service gentleman who was returning from the boarding gate with an empty wheelchair and asked him for help. He took her right to the gate area where I took over and wheeled her right to the door to the plane. She loaded herself up with pills and somehow survived the flight (8 hours) to our stopover in Houston. Lee slept for much of the time in Houston in another wheelchair. We were able to upgrade to the last two business class seats to Toronto, in the hope that Lee would be more comfortable. Because of all the pills she promptly fell asleep until we arrived in Toronto.Read more