Santiago de Chile

Park in Santiago de Chile

 From Bogota we flew down to Santiago de Chile, which took about five hours.  Because we were staying here over our anniversary, and again over Nic's birthday when we were back from Easter Island, we had booked ourselves into a nice Aparthotel instead of a hostel. Whilst neither fancy nor overly expensive, it was a nice treat to have our own space, a bath and a hair dryer. And having our own kitchen meant we could get up late and do ourselves a late breakfast.


Plaza de Armes, Santiago de Chile



Mind you, even we weren't expecting to be quite as late as we were the first morning.  Having arrived at the hotel at about nine thirty pm, we only got back from dinner at around one am and got to bed sometime later, so we set our alarms for a leisurely ten am, and then stayed in bed while Nic watched football and I did some blogging and reading.  It was around midday when we realised that in fact it was really two pm.  We had put our watches forward the two hour time diference between Colombia and Chile, but not our phones, which we use for alarms.  Oops!  Never mind though, it was a nice relaxing start to our time in Santiago.  

 

Plaza de Armes, Santiago de Chile


 We spent our time in Santiago catching up with some more of our practical tasks, wandering around the city and finding nice places to east and drink.  The practical stuff may be tedious at times, but it can make you see parts of the city that you wouldn't normally go as a tourist, and that can help you learn something about the place you're in.  In Santiago we visited the industrial area of the city to get the ipad fixed, and were surprised to see how pretty it is.  Generally the industrial area of a town is exactly as it sounds, concrete, grey, dull and ugly.  But here the industrial area was nicely laid out, with smart buildings, and had little garden areas.  Not sure that it makes much difference in the long run, but does it perhaps suggest a greater sense of pride when you want to make the places in the background of city life look good rather than just focussing on the highlights?  I don't know the answer to why, but I like the result.


The area we are staying in, Providencia is just away from the old town and tourist areas.  It is new and modern, and is clearly where the locals go out in Santiago.  We found all kinds of places to eat and drink.  There were upscale places like Astrid and Gaston.  There was a great tapas place and a little place where we had tea (proper tea mind) and scones. There was the quiet little pedestrianised street with a few cafes and bars including the comic themed one and the one called the Phone Box, where the door to the place was actually a red phone box with the back cut out.  Then there was the 'trying to be North American' place which was open very late and was very popular with the local 20-30 year olds, and the pedestrianised area crowded with bar/restaurants that was the party area.  And all sorts of places in between.  We tried out a number of those mentioned and some were very good.  Just don't sit under the windows in party street as people have a tendency to throw things out of the upstairs windows as we discovered; we moved table quickly and were given free drinks by the staff as an apology though, so all was well.





Plaza de Armes, Santiago de Chile



Aside from visiting the bars, we did manage to fit in a visit to the tourist area around Plaza de Armas.   On the plus side, there were some decent old buildings around the square, and it was nice that it was a 'working' square.  What I mean by that is that the square really is used by the locals.  We saw the usual toy horses waiting to be ridden by children, an art sale, a man preaching to those nearby who were doing their best to ignore him, people sat out chatting with friends, a Christmassy Santa's Grotto type thing sponsored by Coca Cola, a band stand full of people playing chess, and lots more of life going on. We also saw a rather silly looking poodle dressed in a santa suit.  But aside from that, the area was just a bit dull.  The shops had moved in to the areas around and with the tourist slanted hotels and restaurants, it just felt lacking in soul.  It didn't inspire us to spend long there.





Plaza de Armes, Santiago de Chile



There was a nice little area nearby in Lastaria, which had a pleasant group of bars and restaurants with outdoor seating, and we made use of that a few times.  We were joined a few evenings by some friends of Nic who are also travelling and their time in Santiago coincided with the end of ours. The four of us paid a visit to the Bellavista area one evening, which is the pub and club part of town.  We didn't do the clubs, but  still when we left a bit before 4am we found we had again outlasted most of the locals.



Plaza de Armes, Santiago de Chile



It may sound like all that we did in Santiago was eat and drink.  To a degree that would be right; we didn't really do tourist sights, but we did get to see quite a lot of the city, including places that often only the locals would use. It wasn't the most exciting or most attractive city we've visited, but I can imagine that it is a good place to live. And when the clouds eventually lift enough to see them, the sight of the Andes mountain range surrounding the city is pretty good.



Plaza de Armes, Santiago de Chile