Adios Santiago

I apologize because this blog is a lot longer than I had intended, but a lot has happened since we left Mendoza. We were both very excited to return to Santiago, a city we quite fell in love with on our honeymoon twelve years ago. It was clean and beautiful, we felt safe, we enjoyed very good food and wine at reasonable prices and the weather was perfect. We spent many happy moments shopping at the Mercado Central, buying fresh fruit and dining with the locals. We marvelled at the grandeur and pristine condition of the historic buildings.

This time, when we arrived, we used an Uber to get us to our accommodations which was located downtown, close to the Mercado and the historic center. Once we got into the city, as we crawled through rush hour traffic, we were struck by the reality of today’s Santiago. What the f#*k happened? Graffiti everywhere, homeless encampments around the Mercado Central, street vendors lining the sidewalks with a wide array of used crap spread out on blankets and a prevailing sense of hopelessness. Not quite as bad as Vancouver’s Downtown East Side, but pretty close. This is definitely not somewhere we want to spend three months.

When our Uber arrived close to our accommodations, we had to walk half a block through a crowded impromptu street market. The street market wasn't anything like the ones we encountered in Thailand where you couldn't wait to wade right in. This street market was chaotic and full of litter and had a sense of lawlessness that immediately put us on edge. Of course, we had no internet connection as our Argentine SIM card doesn’t work in Chile and we had no way to let our host know we had arrived. Thankfully, the security guard was able to let us in and contact our host, Victor, who promptly brought us up to our home for the next four days.

Based on our initial impressions we immediately started formulating a Plan B.

On our first full day in Santiago, we walked over to Barrio Italia, an upscale Hipster part of town that is chock full of restaurants and interesting shops. This is more like the Chile we first knew, however the price of everything in this area is reflective of the better quality of life there.

On our second day, we took a walking tour of the historic center that was guided by a young Santiagan named Leon. Along with his description of the buildings we saw, he gave us his perspective of the events that shaped modern day Chile, from the military coup that overthrew the Allende regime to the student protests of 2019 that were the catalyst for the abhorrent widespread graffiti in the city.

On Day four we returned to do a walkthrough of Providencia and Barrio Italia after dismissing the idea of hiking to the top of the 850-meter San Cristobal Hill due to safety concerns. Since our homeward bound flight leaves from Santiago, we booked an Airbnb accommodation in Barrio Italia for the last leg of our journey in January.

This post is lacking in photos because in many places, it just wasn't safe to take out our phones. The photo of Santa Lucia Hill is from the safety of Victor's beautiful terrace. If you zoom in on the photo of the Academia des Bellas Artes, you'll get an idea of the disrespectful graffiti on the beautiful buildings. We wanted to take a photo of the shocking street graffiti but we just couldn't risk it. In fact, while we were at Victor's, another one of his guests had her phone snatched from a cyclist riding by. Uggh, reminders of our mugging in Brazil.

Alas, it's on to plan B.Meer informatie