Day 83. Tuesday 19th November. Camp Izuelina. Santiago. Chile. A rest day.

A day of sightseeing

Our objective today, was to see some of Chile’s capital, Santiago. Population, a smidge under 7milliom. 40% of Chile’s population live in the Santiago metropolitan area. Established as the capital, by Spanish Conquistador Pedro de Valdivia, pictured below, in 1541.

Santiago, the city

Santiago is the most sophisticated city we have experienced so far, in South America. Wide boulevard thoroughfares and large parts of the central city pedestrianised, makes for pleasant strolling and people watching.

To arrive in the city we sought the services of an Uber to take us from the outskirts of the city to a metro train station, Plaza de Maipu. The ride took 30 minutes.
The metro is extremely efficient and after purchasing and loading our destination station on a card, to Plaza de Armas, in the centre of the city, the ride took us another 30 min.

Wandering amongst the buildings on pedestrianised streets, our first objective was to take a ride on a funicular railway to the top of a mountain in the otherwise flat city landscape. The city is actually between two wide apart mountain ranges. There is still some snow on one of them, and it makes for an attractive backdrop.

Someone let a gorilla loose on the street, complete with amazing sounds!! What people will do for a buck..:)

Then there are others selling stuff…

Beautiful colonial buildings with new…beautifully maintained park squares…

The funicular railway.

After a coffee and milkshake refreshments the next objective, walk the 10min to the base of a mountain close to the city centre. There is a funicular railway to the top, along with religious structures. Queuing for the railway took about 45min. It seemed like half of Santiago decided to go at the same time, along of course, with dozens of like minded tourists.

The wait was worth it, as preceding photos of the city attest.

For the whole morning I had been having stomach cramps and not feeling that flash! However with some food taken at the top, some improvement occurred.

Having enough of the views, and people, the next objective was to find the Museum of Disappeared.

Another metro ride, with the museum built into the station, Quinta Normal.

Museum of the Disappeared

It’s brilliant that the past is being memorialised. The hope is it will never happen again!! The tragedy is the whole fiasco was masterminded in Washington. Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger and others need to have been tried, along with Pinochet and his henchmen. Tragically, nobody has faced judgement, and most involved, have since departed this life.

A montage of the disappeared.

I well recall the days, and the holding of thousands in the football stadium, with the media painting a picture of guilty people. Many never survived and to listen to the harrowing stories of those that did, incites deep anger.

Heading home……?

By 5.45pm we needed to head back to the metro, to take a train back to Plaza de Maipu, where an Uber driver was going to pick us up at 6.30pm. In place for the ride back to the camp by 6pm, we waited. And waited. By 6.17pm we sent her a message saying we were in place. At 6.24pm saying she would be 15 or 20min late. By 7pm Jens phone battery died and the ride had not materialised! What to do!!! We could now not call another Uber, or contact our ride, who we figured had decided not to come. Nor could we remember our return address!! Deciding to either walk the 2.5hours, or find a cab, Jen got the brainwave of consulting iOverlander, on my phone! iOverlander operates on satellite contact, not internet, for our camp address. But my phone battery was getting low too. I had decided to take the phone as a camera, and leave the Canon in Poki, with our passports and other valuables. We were advised to.

Lessons

With our address, at least we could direct ourselves back to the camp…but the battery would not last a 2.5 hours walk. We needed to find a cab. The first cab we flagged down, would not entertain a drive so far out of the city! Trying to find someone who could speak English, was proving difficult. A street seller advised us by sign language, to walk across the square to another taxi rank. A kindly taxi driver took pity on us and agreed to take us. 40min later we were at the gate and my battery died on the way!

Once home and the phones were charged enough, we got a message from our ride to say she was held up by an accident, and would be later still!!

We need to carry a paperclip so we could have swapped Jen’s SIM to my phone.

It was 9pm by the time dinner was over and another hour plus before we could retire for the night. An eventful and interesting day…:)

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