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CHILE Santiago de Chile (19.3.-20.3.) Santiago We landed in Santiago on March 19 at around noon, after a ten-hour flight from Auckland, New Zealand. It was a direct flight that passed very close to the southern-pole, but not close enough for us to be able to see Antarctica. We used a new strategy and arranged for a hotel directly at the airport, which turned out to be a very good choice. We took a public bus to the city, found the hotel and bought some food for dinner, but due to the jet-lag, we crashed to our beds soon after. Next day, after a good breakfast
in the hotel courtyard, we set off to explore the city. High-rise buildings, banks
and many buses contributing to the already bad air-pollution above the city,
were the first picture we saw. However, the pedestrian zone, encompassing several blocks around the
city center, was very pleasant and filled with people. Chileans gather
there to watch tango performers or sit at tables in front of numerous cafes and ice-cream shops. We would guess that Santiago
is the city with highest ratio of ice-cream shops per inhabitant in the
world. And
they sure know how to make ice-cream!!! Valle de Maipo (21.3.) We Sangiago de Chile (22.3.) Monday, March 22. It is a business day, offices are open. The pressure is rising. Tomorrow morning, we fly to Rio de Janeiro, but we do not have our Brazilian visa yet. We could not get it before leaving for the trip, since its validity are three months only. We tried to arrange for it in New Zealand, but unsuccessfully, since the embassy in New Zealand can only issue Brazilian tourist visas to New Zealand citizens. We were promised via an email communication that the Brazilian consulate in Santiago would help us, but one never knows. In the waiting room, there was a big sign on the wall: "It takes 48 hours to issue visas. We are unable to provide any faster service. Do not ask for it." Hmmm, that was not a good start! The official we talked to did not remember any email and pointed our attention to this big sign, when we asked for same-day visa issuance. It took about one hour of broken-Spanish communication to make them agree to help us. They did. By the end of the day, we had Brazilian visas in our passports. We were even left with a few hours to watch people play chess at Plaza de Armas and enjoy our taste of the excellent Chilean ice-cream. As our trip was reaching its end, we were becoming more and more nostalgic and frequently played back our memories. Our stay in Santiago was very relaxing. The next story well depicts the ambiance of our evenings, spent in the garden of our hotel : "Every day in the evening, we leave our hotel and walk to a close-by grocery store to buy some food for dinner. Every day, as we pass by a narrow empty lot between two residential houses, we see an old woman pushing some food through a fence. By the time we are on our way back, there are more then twenty cats eating her food and watching this lady through the fence. Soon, everything disappears in the darkness of the night. Later last night, we were having our dinner in a small garden behind our hotel. Salmon and rice, accompanied by good Chilean wine. For being in the middle of a metropolis, it was surprisingly quiet. As we started to eat, I looked up into the sky and despite the light pollution above the city immediately noticed the Southern Cross. Before I managed to recall the first time I saw it - just below Machu Picchu in Peru - a bright star "fell" from the sky. I made a wish...."
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Chile Population: 15 500 000 Population growth:
1,09% Literacy rate: 98,9%
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is
a metropolis with 4.5 million inhabitants. In downtown, one keeps
wondering if they are in Europe or in the USA. Cobblestone streets with open-air cafés
and colonial palaces mix in with modern steel-and-glass high-rise
buildings, shopping malls and fast-food restaurants.
could
not accept the fact that we would not visit the Andes at all on our trip.
Especially since we originally planned to spend more than two months in
these majestic mountains of South America. Thus, on Sunday, March 21 we
decided to at least pay them a short visit. We took a local bus and
after two hours we reached a small town of San José de Maipo,
about 60km from Santiago. The town lies in Valle de Maipo, popular
weekend destination for people from the city. The air is much cleaner
here and the higher altitude offers more pleasant climate. We stopped at
the Information Center on the Plaza de Armas (where else - perhaps every
town in the spanish-speaking South America has its own Plaza de Armas with church
and a park) and asked for "directions to the mountains". We
hiked on a dirt road leading to one of the famous ski resorts. We ascended from
about 900m to 1350m and were absorbing the views and ambiance of the
mountains. Andes! We made it there!