Lovely Santiago

Friday the 20th all three of us were very ready to get out of town. Leave the cold and snow. Stop bicycling in the chilly wind on sandy roads. Run away from all the fun at work. Go explore another corner of the world. Just to go.

None of us had ever done such a long flight basically in the same time zone. Sure Chile is 4 time zones east of New Mexico, but it was going to be a ten hour flight that got us there. Unfortunately it was one of the rattiest most uncomfortable worn out 767 that I had been on in a long time. Perhaps the only worse plane I have seen recently is an old Russian Tupelov. The crew was not in much better shape. Oh well, the luxuries of exotic foreign travel I guess.

I was not sure what to expect with Santiago, but I was surprised--and really enjoyed it. It looks a bit like Phoenix in that it is a very flat city but ringed by mountains. Within the city there are small hillocks (cerros they say here) that pop up in a few places and give a great view of the city. It is an easy city to get around. We started out at the Pajarito metro station which seemed appropriate for us.

One of the interesting things we found was that there we very few English speaking tourists. We are here in high season and apparently the Chilean schools are out of session now. It also appears that there are not a ton of non-Spanish speakers that visit since most of the signage is only in Spanish. For some reason I am always happy to find spots on the globe that are not completely infected (or affected) by the needs and wants of the American visitor.

We were hoping for some good seafood being so close to the coast. We even watched the No Reservations episode on Chile while we flew down. There was no problems finding fantastic fruits of the sea. We have all taken a liking to Congrito (conger eel) which could easily be rebranded as fish and you would never know.

We also found a local summer special drink that starts with barley pellets with peaches and juice poured in the top. Surprisingly tasty even though the texture is not what you would expect coming from a cup.


All in all, I really liked the city. I would come back here again for sure. It was easy to get around, felt very safe, had not been invaded by the northern tourists, great food, very very friendly people.


- UnclePhool, Dave, and Deniece

Location:Santiago Chile