The Wandering Chocoholic

Hola from Santiago!

I arrived here at around 8am after a flight to Miami, a quick stopover with a mad dash through the airport, and a long but uneventful overnight flight from Miami to Santiago. I managed to get some sleep on the plane, and all was well. Except that apparently my checked luggage didn’t make the mad dash as successfully as I did, since I arrived here in Santiago only to find out that my backpack is still stuck in Miami. Ack!

Well, nothing much I could do about it, so I left with little more than my passport and the clothes on my back and took a shared taxi van into Santiago. As we wound through different neighbourhoods of the city to drop off passengers, I couldn’t help but notice what a beautiful city this is. Wide, tree-lined boulevards, ornate European-style architecture, and colourful houses and shops. We passed through the Centro area, with its main plaza and churches and beautiful buildings, and I started making mental notes.

Arrival to my hostel, in Providencia. It’s a really great place, with a chilled-out vibe and a terrace and lounge to hang out. I met up with Chris almost right away, and a short while later, Julie woke up from her nap. The backpacker community is truly wonderful; as soon as they heard I lost my luggage, they offered to help. It was a hot, summery day, well over 30 degrees, and there I was in the same clothes I left Montreal in – jeans, hiking shoes, and a wool sweater. Not cool. Anyway, the hostel staff gave me a towel, Julie provided a spare t-shirt, I picked up a couple of other items at a pharmacy around the corner including a toothbrush and shampoo, and a short while later I was feeling almost human again.

A couple of hours later, Efrain and Scott showed up, and Santiago-fest was officially underway.

We took the subway to the Centro area and walked up to the Presidential Palace to take cheesy pictures with the guards and see all the statues of past presidents since Chile’s democratic era began. We headed to the Plaza d’Armes, which is much like our Place d’Armes, featuring a large ornate cathedral dating back to the 16th century as well as a large fountain – complete with children swimming in it. We got ice cream and tried a local specialty from a street vendor that was some sort of peach-flavoured syrupy juice.

Alma, Efrain’s wife, met up with us a short while later after an encounter with “the cable guy”, and we all walked up to Cerro Santa Lucia and hiked to the top for a panoramic view of the city. The hill was a fortress used in defense of the city in the past. These days, there are parties and corporate events hosted in the fortress.

For dinner, we all wanted to try typical Chilean food, so we went to a restaurant that Efrain and Alma knew in the Bellavista neighbourhood. First thing was a round of Pisco Sour, the local specialty cocktail. Dinner was fantastic, involving much fish and empanadas and sopapillas and other fun stuff.

If you’re ever stranded someplace without luggage, I highly recommend having a local friend who works for P&G. Efrain and Alma invited me over to their place after dinner for a shower, change of clothes, and all the sample sized toiletry items a girl could ever ask for. After that, I was definitely feeling human again, and we went back to the hostel to pick up the others and headed back across to Bellavista to a karaoke bar. Yep, that’s right, karaoke. Unfortunately – or fortunately, depending on how you look at it – we didn’t get to sing much. But the atmosphere there was great, with everyone signing along to songs they knew, and impromptu dancing breaking out every second song. Yes, it’s true: Latin American men really know how to dance! Somewhere while we were there, we changed the clocks back an hour – yep, it’s opposite seasons here in the Southern Hemisphere – which gave us an extra hour to enjoy the nightlife before dragging our exhausted selves back to the hostel for some much-needed sleep.

It was a great first day in Chile and I am absolutely in love with Santiago. More soon.