Blog 21: Sunset on Santiago

4th - 8th December 2023

So finally, I arrived in Santiago from Puerto Montt, for a few days of city-stay prior to returning to Melbourne. The stay was interrupted by one day trip into the Andes behind Santiago (see Blog 20: The Llama that Spat), but this final blog is dedicated to my observations about Santiago, Chile and South America in general, by way of conclusion.

The first thing to say about Santiago is it was uncharacteristically hot. The sun was out, and locals told me often that Santiago had skipped Spring and gone straight into Summer, in much the same way we sometimes talk in Melbourne about the seasons. As I mentioned in Blog 17 A Flypast of the Andes, Santiago straddles the desert environment of the north and the cool fertile belt of the south; head north and you'll only find desert, head south and you'll enter a beautiful stretch of green fertile farmlands fed by rainclouds, snow and rivers created by the Andes.

It's a largish city. Not sure of the population, but around 7 million seems plausible. It's a city of medium-rise apartments; it's covered in them; I'd say most people live in an apartment. They are quite shabby in most of the city, especially in the centre.

In fact the whole CBD is quite shabby. There is the usual crowd of office workers, students and tourists, but also a big contingent of homeless people and ice addicts and side streets full of slums. Even some of the major tourist sites, like the Plaza de Armas (city square) are dodgy, as the tour guide on my Andes tour told me, 'full of prostitutes and Venezuelans'.

The Venezuelans. Over and over I was to hear that Venezuelans are the cause of everything bad in Santiago. It's kind of hard to believe that they have caused the shabby apartments and poorly made roads in the city centre, but clearly there is an immigration issue in Chile, even if its a perceived one. The taxi driver who took me to the airport echoed Miguel's comments from the day before when he said 'Santiago 15 years ago was nice. The Venezeulans f'd up their own country and began migrating here because the living standards were higher. They've brought all their gangs and violence with them. They collect protection money. They dismember the corpses of people they murder. They run drug empires from Santiago. They run people smuggling businesses. They are bad news. They've destroyed downtown Santiago. Chileans are just not like that.' (It was amazing how his English improved as he warmed to the topic.)

So there are social issues in Santiago and I've painted an ugly picture of the downtown area. Of course, that excludes a very substantial overlay of prosperity, and some truly charming parts of the city. I also haven't mentioned its location, the grand boulevards radiating out from the centre, the spectacular backdrop of the Andes and the unusual positioning of the CBD in a narrow valley, whose sides obscure the CBD buildings from view in large parts of the city.

Picture essay

It all depends on where you point your camera, of course. I am less likely to take photos of shabby apartments and homeless Venezuelans than I am of greenery and impressive streetscapes. So here's some photos of the nicer, grander, and more important aspects of Santiago.

The CBD from the chairlift at St Crisobel Park

Lunchtime crowds in Santiago's main thoroughfare, the Alameda

Much of central Santiago is pedestrian malls, a good thing

The good side of the Plaza de Armas

The main Shopping precinct in the CBD leading down to the Plaza de Armas. Again, a pedestrian mall.

Another CBD street, another mall.

Santiago's boulevard to the south west. Could be St Kilda Road.

Spires on the Metropolitan Cathedral of Santiago, in the Plaza de Armas

The Place de la Constitution outside the Moneda Palace (Presidential Palace)

Dunno. Grand old building.

Flags outside La Moneda, the Presidential Palace

The Presidential Palace (La Moneda). This building of course was bombed during the coup in 1973. President Allende was trapped here while the coup proceeded, then suicided before the palace was bombed. For the 20 or so years of the Pinochet regime, the capitol was moved to a military compound further down the Alameda.

A huge museum underneath the Moneda Palace documents the struggles of relatives to find out what happened to the 'disappeared'.

Inside the museum

The Isabelle Allende section of a Santiago bookshop

The Good Life: One of the more well-to-do suburbs. All the houses had bars on the windows.

Real Housewives of Santiago enjoying an early lunch at my hotel

The pool deck at the top of the Hotel Icon

A city of apartments - views from the 64th storey of South America's tallest building

Another view of the apartments stretching to every horizon

Traffic jam in Santiago. On the way back from the Andes tour, it took 2 hours from this point to reach my hotel. This was 6.00pm

Air pollution masking the Andes behind Santiago

Arid and dry. The hills to the north of Santiago regularly have grass fires.

Santiago's el nino sunset - the result of smoke from two grass fires in the Andes

And off to home

So after almost a month, I left South America for home. It met my expectations and exceeded some, but it never disappointed; what a fascinating, colourful, awesome place it is. Yep, it was hard, especially without any Spanish. It can also be unpredictable, I heard other travel stories that sounded diabolical - last minute cancellations and missed connections mostly. I was lucky, but I also had an itinerary with some built in contingencies - I used agencies a lot - booking.com, GetYourGuide, eDreams and Viator. This can have it's own issues, but booking through them enabled me to cancel up to 24 hours prior to any tour or flight, and this meant if I had any major stumbles or delays in my travel arrangements I could cancel events downstream and not be out of pocket. It also meant I had recourse to some assistance via chat functions, which turned out to be very useful when I realised one flight I'd booked was a 'no baggage' fare. I was able to get the agency to arrange a baggage allowance and provide documented evidence of the purchase to the airline, rather than me trying to do that myself with the airline (difficult when everything's in Spanish, and it's all done online, and if the purchase fails, there is no one to contact, also e-forms timeout while you're trying to translate the instructions).

I met some truly awesome South Americans, and some truly awesome travelling companions on my various excursions and tours. They made the trip special and memorable and I will never forget our shared experiences. I met some unpredictable and slightly scary people too (The Gringo), and I also met some highly indifferent service staff, who seemed contemptuous of non-English speakers. I don't judge them, but it was something I hadn't experienced when travelling before.

I will never forget the glaciers I saw in the Sacred Valley and at Humantay. The glaciers generally are in full retreat now due to climate change, and many willbe gone in 15 years' time. Sad reality. I will cling on to my photos.

I will never forget the sheer verticality of Peru; something an Aussie finds truly amazing. It's a place where tropical vegetation can grow in a valley while up ahead glaciers cling to snow-clad peaks, and in the valley next door, only grass and dust cling to the mountainsides.

I will never forget the Sun Gate. I actually well up thinking about it. For some reason it's lonely sentinel up there keeping watch over Mt Veronica touches me emotionally; I think it always will. Pretty much everything about the lost civilisation of the Incas is moving, the Sun Gate encapsulates that for me.

I will never forget Machu Picchu. The light, mostly, and just the sacredness of the site.

I will never forget the Uyuni Salt Plains. The purity of them, the mirages they create, the vastness of the lake and the blue hues of the surrounding mountains and volcanoes. Unforgettable.

I will never forget San Pedro and its dusty streets and friendly vibe. It was like living in a wild west movie set.

I will never forget the little farm from heaven that I made home for a few days down in the south of Chile. It was the most verdant, stunning farming country I have seen and a sensational contrast to the barreness of the north.

...and I will never forget the terrifying but totally awesome Mount Osorno, the volcano that challenged my vertigo but delivered some of the most stunning views I have ever seen.

I will never forget you South America! It's been a dream come true.

A very bad photo of the midnight sun over Antarctica, from the overnight flight to Melbourne