Hi its exlrrp, still in Chile. I come here every year, have family here.
Most of my diaries are on Chilean wall art (which is everywhere) but I thought I'd try and give you a taste of what Santiago's like. To start with its a big city about like LA: sits in a bowl of mountains, pretty flat with a few hills scattered around in the middle. It has about the same weather as LA---generally warm and dry.
My son and his family live in Nunoa (said Nunyoa, it has a tilde on the n) which is a mostly upper middle class neighborhood. This is the house here, that's his red VW in front of it. Spanish style of architecture means putting up walls and or high bars with spikes on them all around the house. You can't see inside the yards of most houses, walls face the street, not yards. There's also bars on all the ground floor windows.
It makes it so every corner is a "blind" corner.
The roots of Santiago go back to 1541, or at least that's when the Europeans showed up.
I won't go into history much except to say there's a lot of it here.
I thought I might show you what its like to bicycle around here and to give you some of my thoughts on it. this will be a triangle trip: our house to Los Dominicos to downtown then back---about 15 miles total.
There's a lot to be said about Chile, almost all of it good. Chile would look a lot like America if Americans dressed better, acted more like adults and weren't so fat. Believe me, you see these differences. Chileans are every bit as modern and sophisticated as we are, they have all the conveniences that we do. Like the USA, about half the people you see at any minute are having some kind of relations with their phones: looking at it, talking to it, poking it or stroking it.
One thing I think most of you would miss is the diversity of the USA. The US is the most diverse country in the world---when you see an American, it could be any race or look in the world---here there's a sameness: European with a mestizo mix. Los indios (Native Chileans?) are fairly light skinned so there's not a lot of dark skinned people. It's unusual to see an Asian or black African. The women mostly go for long straight hair.
I really like it here, the people are cool---not a lot of belligerent assholes just waiting to gun someone down like some countries with lots of states in them I could mention. Guns are well regulated here--- you don't have a God given right to own an assault rifle here and you'll never own a pistol here either. No 2A, no SYG---people just don't think along those lines. Its not a violent society and has a low violent crime rate to show for it.
I also think women are treated better here than any other Spanish speaking country Ive been to (6.) The president is a woman, for the 2d time.(same woman) They can walk down the street without being subjected to whistles, catcalls, dirty remarks or assaults.(looking at YOU, Mexico) Chilean women just wouldn't put up with that, or so some of them have told me. About the only negative I can think of to say is abortion is still illegal. (Birth control is not, you see billboard ads for condoms)
I like my granddaughters growing up here.
Its a pretty safe place to be--people drive well here and have a good attitude about bikes, pedestrians too. And the bikers and pedestrians here have a good attitude also. There's bike lanes all over Santiago, which I'll show you. I like biking around Santiago--I have access to one of my son's cars but never use it. I'd rather bike or take the metro (seen below and also in this diary) which is the cleanest, nicest subway I've ever been on. One of the things I like about the Metro is street musicians get on with you so there's a serenade usually. I always give them the coins in my pocket.
OK, so I take off from the house above, right on Hamburgo, left on Echenique. There are no numbered streets or avenues so you have to remember a lot of names, mostly with "de" in the middle. I know the main streets by now so I may be lost for a little while but can always get back.
So now we're on Echenique heading west---it has a nice bike path. Love these bike paths, they are on about every 4th street. Makes biking a breeze. Riding on the sidewalk is allowed.
ths is what a schoolbus looks like. Almost all the kids wear uniforms to school: skirts for the girls and white shirts and ties for the boys. When I first saw a bunch of high school boys I thought they were Mormons on a mission.
Like all over Chile, there's art everywhere, this is some more of it
OK, jogging over a little on Tobalaba---this is a long thin river park that would take us to the heart of town but I'm just cutting over a few blocks on it to Troncos Viejos (Old Stumps street)
Things to look at on Troncos Viejos
Ok, it was Troncos Viejos to Francisco Bilboa (Paco) to Tomas Moro (Tommy---these are local nicknames) to Calle Los Dominicos to, finally Los Dominicos at the end of Apoquindo. This is one of my favorite places in STGO. Its an old monastery thats been converted to a huge artists market. There's about 100 little studios here (they expanded it recently) with about 6 little cafes. This is a really cool place, both artwise and climate wise. A village by itself. Best place to buy souvenirs: art, clothing, jewelry, pets, trinkets, etc. Big trees provide shade, a great place to stroll, lounge around, eat at one of the cafes, which is what I'm doing here
That pickup truck in front of the old Church (still active after almost 400 years) is the way pickups look here---they ALL have "crewcab" seating. I've never seen a single seat or extended cab pickup here. I saw my first full size pickup here for the first time yesterday, an F150---crewcab.
There's also a farmers market here and a big playground. My son used to live a few blocks away but he moved and just in time too---theyre building a 10 story highrise condo right across the street from where he used to live. I used to take my granddaughters up here to play and to see the birds in the petshops at Los Dominicos
Ok Now I'm back on the bike and heading down towards Apoquindo, which begins on the other side of the orange bus. That's a Chilean cop up on the right a little ways, Carabineros de Chile. they have a national police force here, the Carabineros, which are the uniformed cops, and the PDI, which is kind of like the FBI or maybe more like Scotland yard. they do the investigating, Carabineros are the cop on the beat.
Carabineros motto is "Siempre Su Amigo"---always your friend. they sort of have a forest ranger look to them, even carry revolvers on lanyards, like Sgt Preston of the Yukon. theyre honest,, won't shake you down to chisel a few bucks out of you-- don't try to bribe them.
Weed is slightly illegal but seldom enforced for small amounts. you can legally grow one plant in your house. You won't find any heroin in Chile or so they claim.
Ok heading down Apoquindo now. This is a main street that's really getting built up.
Theres a bike path about half the way down, then its onto the sidewalk
here's the Manquehue ("Mahnkayway") Metro Station and plaza
we're downtown now, a Big bustling city with highrises going up all over. As you can see the building never stops in Santiago
Ok we crossed Andres Bello to the Mapocho river park that runs through Santiago. This is the first of the Sculpture Garden that we're about to ride through
There's a freeway that runs underneath the park---this is a vent for it
now we're riding through the Sculpture garden---more than 100 of these here, all different, covering about a mile of park. Wish I had space to show more of them----you can burn a couple of hours just looking at these.
Ok, so we leave the Sculpture Garden, cross Andres Bello otra vez back track a little bit then catch Amerigo Vespuci all the way back to Nunoa.
A wide street with a park running down the middle, made for bikers.
So that's the tour, for the day, folks. we missed a lot, like the Old Town , the fish market, Cerro San Cristobal and the Plaza de Armas but thats for another diary.
Ciao you, all, see you on the road