Friday, February 17

I arrived home yesterday having traveled more than 8,400 miles from Puerto Varas, Chile to Olympia in four days and in four flights (Puerto Montt to Santiago to Toronto to Denver to Seattle), and with car rides on each end.

We had a little over a day in Santiago and the city grew on me.  On Monday, our initial encounter was with a hotel reservation in a place that we realized, after we arrived, would not work.  On a noisy major boulevard, up three flights of stairs, and no air conditioning in 90 degree heat.  It cost, but within an hour we found another place on a side street, with elevators, and with air conditioning.

Then we spent a couple of hours walking.  First  to the Plaza de Armas, the central square, dating from the city's sixteenth century founding and fronted by the cathedral.

Plaza de Armas

Our route took us along a main shopping street, Calle Huérfanos, pedestrian only like many streets in the area and lined with large shopping arcades (or gallerias) with all kinds of stores and a variety of goods that would make American shopping malls and big box stores seem stunted. Along the way we picked up jugo naturales custom made from a choice of fruits that included oranges, peaches, strawberries, blueberries, pineapples, raspberries, mangoes, cherimoya (custard apples from Peru).  As in Argentina fruit juice beverages (called liquados in Argentina, jugo natural in Chile, and sometimes frappe or simply jugo) are a favorite and great for the visitor on a hot summer day. (Not in the fruit mix, but delicious in Chile, is la palta [avacado].  Nothing in an American supermarket can compare.)

After a leisurely breakfast on Tuesday we walked up Huérfanos to Cerro Santa Lucia, a hill with an old fortress and views of the city.

 Fountain on Cerro Santa Lucia

 View from Cerro Santa Lucia

After lunch at a sidewalk cafe and hosted by a waiter who had been an exchange student in Kentucky, we set out for the National History Museum in the Plaza de Armas.  First a walk by an old Moorish style building we spotted from hour hotel building.  This shows signs of earthquake damage and I think the mixture of old and new buildings in the centro is partially the result of the survival of the fittest structures.

 Old building with Moorish architecture in central Santago

Next to La Moneda, the presidential palace.  We listened to a guide talk about Chilean history, and in particular the events of the 1970s and 1980s.  Like Argentina, Chile suffered a brutal military dictatorship during this period.  The guide said that his wife's grandfather was among the disappeared during the Pinochet regime which followed the 1973 coup, and deposition and death of  President Salvatore Allende.   I won't go into the history here, but those who were around during the 70s should remember the names Allende and Pinochet.  For a refresher and for those who weren't, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_coup_of_1973

La Moneda

The history museum concentrates on Chile's history basically starting with the Spanish settlement.  (pre-Columbian history is the subject of another museum which was closed while were were there).  As we walked the halls viewing good, but conventional, exhibits in nice exhibit space in a restored colonial building, I wondered how the museum would treat the events of the 1970s and 1980s.  The last exhibit displays newspaper headlines from 1973 along with a large display case which contains only the shattered half of Allende's glasses.  The notes (which we translated) that accompany it quote the woman who found them.  The morning after the coup she was awakened early by the sound of bombs and went to check on a relative who lived near La Moneda.  When she passed the building, she asked a soldier what was happening.  He soldier invited her inside to see Allende's body in an upstairs room.  As she was leaving she noticed the glasses and took them.  A policeman asked if they were Allende's, but she said, no, they were hers.  It wasn't until recent years that she felt it was safe for her to give them to the nation.