A Mixed Day

So, we stayed up last night, looking stuff up in our book and drawing out this great itinerary. There’s this walking tour of Santiago, that Lonely Planet (LP) touts. We decided to go on it, since it goes right by our hostel anyway. Then we’d end up at the Museum next to the Plaza de Armas (where the hostel is) – the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolumbino, which I had walked past after a run, without realizing what it was. The book says if you hit only one museum, make sure this is it.

(Well, our neighbor’s book said that. Ours was purchased used, and is missing one page. What it says is “If you only have time to visit one museum, this should be it.” at the top of page 75. But, page 74 is missing. Page 73 has a map on it, and someone ripped it out, and then sold the book. Our suite-mates here at the hostel have the same book, though, so I just borrowed it for a few minutes.)

So, we start out on our quest, once I finally managed to get Ev out of bed and get some food in her (some of you know what I’m talking about.) Things are going well for a while, until we find the fifth or sixth great building in a row that is supposed to be open on a Saturday, but is closed. We’re starting to get a little annoyed, but I know that at the end of the walk, right before we go to the museum, is the only vegetarian restaurant in Santiago. …and it was closed. No explanation. Okay, let’s at least get the museum done this morning, before we find some food and head out for the rest of the day. We sit in the courtyard before going in, so Ev can eat a sandwich we brought. We debate over the map a little bit, until the guard kicks us out, as the place is closing. He points to the sign saying, we close at 2PM on holidays. Holiday? Huh?

Immaculate Conception. Everything was closed because of some idol worship that needed to happen. Pagans. That’s why the only things that were open were the churches. Impressive idols altars.

Okay, so, let’s see stop back in at the hostel, use the bathroom, have a little lunch, then see if the subway is open, and we can go to Cerro San Christobal, which is this mountain/tower/hill thingy that looms over the city. There are cable car (“funicular”) rides up the side of it, and a big statue of the virgin at the top, which you can see from down here. We make our way over, find some fun shopping areas, and find an outdoor café to sit out of the sun awhile. Mood improving – things are open over here. We ride up one cable car, get off and look back – the view of the city is amazing. We’re hundreds of meters above it. There’s a giant religious ceremony going on up here (oh, yeah, that holiday), and there are pilgrims all over. But, they returned the favor of taking no notice of us (people really do pay no attention at all to us here.) There was a priest on a PA system, and people singing and praying along. Some sort of blessing was happening inside the statue.

We took another cable car over to another shoulder of the mountain, where there’s a really nice, and not very crowded, park. Also, the coolest public swimming pool ever, perched on the side of the hill (we really wished we’d brought something to swim in.) From the pool, it looked like you could look out over the valley, and they had built some of the natural rock outcroppings into the structure. Not crowded at all on a sunny Saturday afternoon. Then, after that, yet another cable car, and there was another park, and you could wander out into this quiet residential neighborhood.

Okay, back over the cable cars, and we walked down the mountain instead of taking the funicular down – this was tiring and steep but worth it. We then found this bar/restaurant LP recommended called “Off The Record”, where we tried the drink Chile is famous for, a Pisco Sour. This place is apparently where the arty/intelligentsia crowd hangs out, including the president. I was worried before we went in about my shorts and sandals. But, it was almost deserted. They played a video of a concert by Gal Costa, a Brazilian jazz/samba singer, which was fun. Not sure why they played it, but it was nice, and they were setting up for some live music.

Pisco is grape brandy, and it’s combined with some sort of foaming citrus stuff to make a drink that’s tasty, if a little strong for my tastes. Ev got a glass of Pisco straight up, and a bottle of coke to pour into it (we just nodded our heads to whatever the waitress said, and that’s what she got.) Not as good. We ordered one more Pisco Sour to split, then headed out for a restaurant LP had recommended.

At this point, we were having a great day, the holiday fiasco of the morning a distant memory. We should have stayed in the place we liked, but LP said there was an all you could eat pasta place, where we figured we could get some veggie options. They went on and on about the “pasta for your peso”, and had it in the budget section. We got in a good walk getting there, and figured we’d take the subway back.

On getting to “La Mia Pappa”, we sit down, and the waiter won’t give us a menu, as it’s a buffet. He goes on and on about how everything is included (I think.) He says there’s no menu, to our repeated requests. In retrospect, we should have gone and looked at the buffet first, or at least asked about the cost, but we were going with what LP told us. There wasn’t much we could eat at the buffet, and there was no pasta at all. A number of raw salad dishes, which we’re warned not to eat, and a few cooked piles of vegetables (looked like corn and peas from a can.) There were several casseroles that may or may not have contained noodles, and various other things we didn’t want to find out about. There was also a busy meat counter, which I bet was pretty yummy to the carnivores. So, we figured that LP got this one a little wrong, and we were probably going to pay at least twice what they listed (they said the meal of the day would be $3.) The bill came, and it was 41 bucks! Which is more than we pay in Seattle, typically.

Not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, and we’re not really poor hippie backpackers, though we play them on teevee, but that’s still a big hole in the budget, and LP missed by a mile. That’s a lot more than the “premium” listings they have. If you read LP, you get the impression that a 15 dollar meal here is really spendy.

Okay, so we’re really mad at LP, a little mad at ourselves for not asking more questions (I’m mad at myself for not speaking Spanish), and we try to find the subway, which is on the other side of the street , around the corner, behind a building and a block away from where it’s marked on the three different maps we had (we had to wander into a Blockbuster and ask directions.) And the subway closes at 1030! And the ticket selling booth closes at 1000. We had no card, we were just paying cash. We wandered all over the station, pressing buttons on various machines, trying to find one that would issue a card. Finally, we tried to ask a security guard, and he kind of surreptitiously let us in through the security gate and waved away our money (thank you, anonymous security guard, and thank you, strangers at blockbuster!)

We have one more full day in Santiago, then we’re off to Valparaiso, on the coast, where according to LP, there are lots of fun funiculars to ride up the hills. (But, it’s LP, so for all I know, the town doesn’t exist, and we will be lighting our beach campfire with this stupid book.)

We've got some cool pictures, that I'll put up soon.