Santiago
If I have a choice, I'm never again going to pick Canada as a country to transit through when flying long haul. I should have known, but didn't, that you need a visa even when just transiting through the airport. I had to frantically apply for one via my phone at the Heathrow airport gate, when I was boarding the plane to Toronto! Once I landed at Toronto to transit, I had a couple of hours for my connecting flight, but because of extreme cold conditions there was a big delay in docking at the gate. I was extremely late for my connecting flight, but I still had to go through full Canadian customs, including questions about why I was visiting Canada! Crazy stuff.
Despite my rush, my connecting flight to Santiago was also delayed, so I made it. In the end, it took off three hours late. By the time I arrived in Santiago, I was done with long haul flying, and looking forward to exploring a new city and basking in the 30 degree heat. I found my hostel easily enough, and instantly befriended an older English chap named Mike who was staying in my dorm. He was also hanging around for a couple of days, so I was glad to have at least one other person to spend New Year's Eve with.
I could tell immediately that Mike was a bit of a character. It's not everyday you meet a one-armed 60 year old Englishman travelling solo in Santiago. He also lived in Saigon, a city I'm very familiar with having spent a few months there for work a couple of years back. After nothing but airline food the past 24 hours, I was starving, so off we went together in hunt of a decent meal. It was clear from the outset that Mike and I were on different budgets, but with Chile being more expensive than the South American countries I had visited so far, it wasn't such a bad thing to lower my costs a little. After some Peruvian food and a little exploring, we ended up in a real local bar for a couple before I collapsed into bed exhausted after my long journey back down south.
My first impressions of Santiago were good - clean, nice, and pretty safe feeling, with the usual colonial main plaza adjoined by a cathedral and important buildings.
The next day was all about getting ready for midnight. It was New Year's Eve, and of course all the museums and other attractions were closed (we checked). I did manage to find a place doing a decent coffee in the bohemian (hipster) neighbourhood. After a big afternoon nap, Mike and I armed ourselves with some craft beer brewed in nearby Valparaiso and a bottle of pisco, and headed to the hostel rooftop area to start counting down the hours.
As the clock got closer to midnight, we were joined by a couple of Aussies, as well as the hostel staff and their friends. They introduced us to a (possibly) Chilean new year's custom where each person writes down one thing they didn't like about the last year, and one thing you'd like to change in the new, and then we put all the notes in a basket and set it on fire. Good clean fun.
With little time to spare, the Aussies, Mike and myself made our way to Bernardo O'Higgins avenue for the main party and fireworks. The long highway was flooded with people. After a slightly confused, messy countdown, the Entel tower was lit up with fireworks. I'm not the biggest fan of fireworks (when you've seen them once, you've seen them all), and these ones didn't change my mind on things, but it was still good fun to party in the street with the Santiago locals. It took us 20 minutes to walk to the party location, but about 90 minutes to walk back, due to most of us being worse for wear (and stopping for a first beer of 2018 on the way home).
And so, as is custom, my first daybreak of a new year was met with a hangover. On top of that, I needed to pack and check out of the hotel - I was leaving for Easter Island in the afternoon. This was a challenge, one rewarded when I left the hostel in search of food fit for a hangover. After walking past many a closed restaurant, I hit the jackpot with an open pizza place. Perfect. My first meal of 2018, a big, greasy pizza. So much for any new year's resolutions.
After a slow paced stroll over Santa Lucia hill, and a quick farewell to my fellow New Year's celebrants at the hostel, off I went in an Uber to the airport. Uber is not legal in Chile, meaning my driver ended the trip in the app just before the drop off area, then gave me a big farewell hug to make everyone think she was my mother or close relative when at the drop-off zone itself.
After five glorious days in Easter Island, covered in another post, I returned to a a different hostel in a different region of Santiago, Bellavista. This was the party district, and it was Saturday night, so after a quick hostel check in I went for a stroll down the main street thronged with Saturday night revellers. This was a huge change in pace from sleepy Easter Island, and it was great to see how Santiago locals went about enjoying themselves.
Despite having a quiet night, my hostel dorm bed was located next to a window, so I didn't have the best of sleeps with the noise. I struggled out of bed the next morning to go check out the things that were closed pre-Easter Island. The National Museum was surprisingly small and only in Spanish, but the Cementario General was amazing. It's a graveyard the size of a small town, with around two million people buried there apparently. It was commissioned in the very early days of Chile as an independent nation, and has been the final resting place for presidents, important Chileans and many others since.
I was interested in finding the tomb of Bernardo O'Higgins, the first governor of an independent Chile who played a big part in the independence fight, and who had an Irish father. I eventually learned his tomb had been moved to its own plaza right in the middle of town. When I travelled there I caught a fleeting glimpse through a footpath glass pane, but unfortunately the tomb was closed to visitors for the brief time I had left in Santiago.
My final night in Chile was spent having a few quiet ones with Mike, back at the old hostel I had spent new year's eve at the week prior. There was much discussion about Saigon and Vietnam, and the night was good craic overall.
In the past few years, I've made a habit of leaving it late to catch a flight at the airport. I let this happen once again, when trying and failing to get an Uber for my flight to Beunos Aires. There were a few cops hanging about near the hostel entrance, and the Uber drivers were driving straight past afraid to stop. I hurriedly got the hostel staff to call me a taxi. I got to the airport pretty tight for time, but thinking I'd be fine, but as soon as I saw the huge overflowing queue for LATAM airlines bag drop I knew I was in trouble. I was in luck however - LATAM are a pretty chaotic airline, and my flight was delayed by over two hours. Phew! Plenty of time in the end, and I had maintained my record of never having missed a flight.
So, Santiago. It was a brief impression, but a good one. I had an idea of what to expect, and Santiago didn't surprise me, but nor did it disappoint me. A few years back, during my third year in Sydney, I was seriously considering moving to Santiago - they had a booming tech scene, but a change in my circumstances meant I stayed down under. I think I would have enjoyed living here if I had made the move.
More photos from Santiago
Despite my rush, my connecting flight to Santiago was also delayed, so I made it. In the end, it took off three hours late. By the time I arrived in Santiago, I was done with long haul flying, and looking forward to exploring a new city and basking in the 30 degree heat. I found my hostel easily enough, and instantly befriended an older English chap named Mike who was staying in my dorm. He was also hanging around for a couple of days, so I was glad to have at least one other person to spend New Year's Eve with.
I could tell immediately that Mike was a bit of a character. It's not everyday you meet a one-armed 60 year old Englishman travelling solo in Santiago. He also lived in Saigon, a city I'm very familiar with having spent a few months there for work a couple of years back. After nothing but airline food the past 24 hours, I was starving, so off we went together in hunt of a decent meal. It was clear from the outset that Mike and I were on different budgets, but with Chile being more expensive than the South American countries I had visited so far, it wasn't such a bad thing to lower my costs a little. After some Peruvian food and a little exploring, we ended up in a real local bar for a couple before I collapsed into bed exhausted after my long journey back down south.
My first impressions of Santiago were good - clean, nice, and pretty safe feeling, with the usual colonial main plaza adjoined by a cathedral and important buildings.
The next day was all about getting ready for midnight. It was New Year's Eve, and of course all the museums and other attractions were closed (we checked). I did manage to find a place doing a decent coffee in the bohemian (hipster) neighbourhood. After a big afternoon nap, Mike and I armed ourselves with some craft beer brewed in nearby Valparaiso and a bottle of pisco, and headed to the hostel rooftop area to start counting down the hours.
As the clock got closer to midnight, we were joined by a couple of Aussies, as well as the hostel staff and their friends. They introduced us to a (possibly) Chilean new year's custom where each person writes down one thing they didn't like about the last year, and one thing you'd like to change in the new, and then we put all the notes in a basket and set it on fire. Good clean fun.
With little time to spare, the Aussies, Mike and myself made our way to Bernardo O'Higgins avenue for the main party and fireworks. The long highway was flooded with people. After a slightly confused, messy countdown, the Entel tower was lit up with fireworks. I'm not the biggest fan of fireworks (when you've seen them once, you've seen them all), and these ones didn't change my mind on things, but it was still good fun to party in the street with the Santiago locals. It took us 20 minutes to walk to the party location, but about 90 minutes to walk back, due to most of us being worse for wear (and stopping for a first beer of 2018 on the way home).
And so, as is custom, my first daybreak of a new year was met with a hangover. On top of that, I needed to pack and check out of the hotel - I was leaving for Easter Island in the afternoon. This was a challenge, one rewarded when I left the hostel in search of food fit for a hangover. After walking past many a closed restaurant, I hit the jackpot with an open pizza place. Perfect. My first meal of 2018, a big, greasy pizza. So much for any new year's resolutions.
After a slow paced stroll over Santa Lucia hill, and a quick farewell to my fellow New Year's celebrants at the hostel, off I went in an Uber to the airport. Uber is not legal in Chile, meaning my driver ended the trip in the app just before the drop off area, then gave me a big farewell hug to make everyone think she was my mother or close relative when at the drop-off zone itself.
After five glorious days in Easter Island, covered in another post, I returned to a a different hostel in a different region of Santiago, Bellavista. This was the party district, and it was Saturday night, so after a quick hostel check in I went for a stroll down the main street thronged with Saturday night revellers. This was a huge change in pace from sleepy Easter Island, and it was great to see how Santiago locals went about enjoying themselves.
Despite having a quiet night, my hostel dorm bed was located next to a window, so I didn't have the best of sleeps with the noise. I struggled out of bed the next morning to go check out the things that were closed pre-Easter Island. The National Museum was surprisingly small and only in Spanish, but the Cementario General was amazing. It's a graveyard the size of a small town, with around two million people buried there apparently. It was commissioned in the very early days of Chile as an independent nation, and has been the final resting place for presidents, important Chileans and many others since.
I was interested in finding the tomb of Bernardo O'Higgins, the first governor of an independent Chile who played a big part in the independence fight, and who had an Irish father. I eventually learned his tomb had been moved to its own plaza right in the middle of town. When I travelled there I caught a fleeting glimpse through a footpath glass pane, but unfortunately the tomb was closed to visitors for the brief time I had left in Santiago.
My final night in Chile was spent having a few quiet ones with Mike, back at the old hostel I had spent new year's eve at the week prior. There was much discussion about Saigon and Vietnam, and the night was good craic overall.
In the past few years, I've made a habit of leaving it late to catch a flight at the airport. I let this happen once again, when trying and failing to get an Uber for my flight to Beunos Aires. There were a few cops hanging about near the hostel entrance, and the Uber drivers were driving straight past afraid to stop. I hurriedly got the hostel staff to call me a taxi. I got to the airport pretty tight for time, but thinking I'd be fine, but as soon as I saw the huge overflowing queue for LATAM airlines bag drop I knew I was in trouble. I was in luck however - LATAM are a pretty chaotic airline, and my flight was delayed by over two hours. Phew! Plenty of time in the end, and I had maintained my record of never having missed a flight.
So, Santiago. It was a brief impression, but a good one. I had an idea of what to expect, and Santiago didn't surprise me, but nor did it disappoint me. A few years back, during my third year in Sydney, I was seriously considering moving to Santiago - they had a booming tech scene, but a change in my circumstances meant I stayed down under. I think I would have enjoyed living here if I had made the move.
More photos from Santiago
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