Santiago, Chile
Noche, nieve y arena hacen la forma de mi delgada patria, todo el silencio está en su larga línea, toda la espuma sale de su barba marina, todo el carbón la llena de misteriosos besos. Como una brasa el oro arde en sus dedos y la plata ilumina corno una luna verde su endurecida forma de tétrico planeta.
Pablo Neruda
“Night, snow and sand compose the form of my slender homeland . . . .” I lovingly added these words, penned by beloved Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, to the top of our Chile 2020 itinerary. After months of planning and reading and dreaming, we arrived in Chile’s capital city in December 2019, during a tumultuous moment in the country’s history. Reports of protests, fires, military blockades, and standoffs between police and protesters had been trickling up into our news alerts since early October.
But when our plane descended along the coastline and veered into a set of steep, rust-colored mountains, I knew that the Chile I was about to visit was going to be the one described in this poem.
Santiago sits about 100 miles inland in the northern part of the long, skinny country that snakes down South America along the Pacific Ocean. After clearing the Andes, our plane dipped down into the valley between the ocean and the mountains. The entire day we spent in Santiago, the Andes Mountains stood in the backdrop.
During our cab ride from the airport to our hotel, we got a glimpse of what we might expect from one of South America’s largest and most populated cities: streets lined with palm trees, billboards graffitied by protestors, shantytowns along the muddy brown Mapocho River, and tall skyscrapers framed by parks, Spanish colonial-style buildings, and winding, meandering streets.
After dropping our bags, Matt and I walked a few blocks from our hotel, located in the Bellas Artes neighborhood, further into the city center.
At lunchtime, the sun was bright and hot, so we ducked into the shade of the enormous food hall Mercado Central. The food seemed a bit too pricey for our taste, so after admiring the offerings, we headed further south, squeezing through pedestrian streets lined with vendors.
After a few more blocks, we came upon the palm tree-lined Plaza de Armas, the city’s central square.
Surrounding it on different sides were the Metropolitan Cathedral of Santiago and the Palacio de la Real Audiencia de Santiago (the seat of local government, once home to the Spanish colonial council). We treated ourselves to lunch and espresso in one of the restaurants lining the plaza, enjoying the summer breeze and the lively atmosphere.
It didn’t take much, however, for us to immediately notice that the city was under pressure. Protestors and their cans of spray paint had spared no street, no monument, no doorway. Graffiti at every turn accused the police and government of violence, corruption, and murder. Even cathedrals and churches were spray-painted as high as the arm could reach.
Even two months after the original protests had happened, we still saw many buildings with broken windows and doors smashed in. Occasionally we saw construction crews working to restore downed electricity poles or erect bars on windows, but the cleanup looked slow-going.
For the rest of our afternoon, we meandered through the city with no real agenda. Jet lag and the onset of a summer cold were holding me back; my normal fervor during the first few hours of a trip can usually get me through anything. I noticed myself having a very hard time breathing. I just blamed it on my sickness but later realized it was the city’s terrible pollution and smog, a problem exacerbated by the mountains surrounding the valley, enclosing it.
We wandered from plaza to plaza, finally arriving at Palacio de la Moneda, the presidential palace. I spent a full five minutes just staring at the beautiful trees lining the entrance to the palace, imagining all the horrible things that had occurred in this spot.
It was in 1973 that a military coup overthrew Chilean socialist president Salvador Allende (uncle to the great novelist Isabel Allende). As with many historical moments, there are two sides to what happened next: the government says that Allende committed suicide inside the palace once the military started threatening to bomb the palace if Allende did not give up his seat; other sources say he was killed during combat with the troops.
The violence, death squads, and forced “disappearances” that followed the coup unspeakably altered Chile. The military government arrested, tortured, and killed hundreds of thousands of citizens during the next several years of its governance. The relatively recent violence that the country witnessed during the 1970s and 80’s stood forefront in my mind that day as I stood in front of the place where it had unfolded.
Today, the presidential palace is a peaceful-looking place. Underneath the palace is a free art museum where we picked up artisan goods and other treasures.
Our favorite thing we did during our very short time in Santiago was visiting Cerro San Cristóbal. In Spanish, cerro means “hill,” and the top of Cerro San Cristóbal offers one of the best views of the city from above. There are multiple ways to reach the top of the hill: by a 45-minute hike (the hard way), by car, by cable car (the Teleférico), or by funicular. We chose to take the funicular because it was cheaper and more easily accessible from our hotel.
It was a very hot day when we walked through the Parque Forestal fringing our hotel, crossed the Mapocho River at the Pío Nono bridge (the river crossing recommended to us by our hotel concierge) and journeyed through the cool, Art Deco Bellavista neighborhood, which houses one of the city’s universities.
The journey from our hotel to the funicular, combined with our jet lag, my cold, and our general unease at being surrounded by so much graffiti and broken glass, meant we were definitely not hiking. Sweating through our clothes, we paid 8,000 Chilean pesos (~10 USD) and boarded the funicular, where we stood with about ten other guests. A gold plaque adorned our car, indicating that Pope John Paul II had ridden in this exact car when he visited Cerro San Cristóbal in 1987.
The ride up the hill, which is one of the highest points in Santiago, takes about 10 minutes.
At its summit, along with stunning 360-degree views, food vendors, and alpacas, we were stunned to find an entire abbey and sanctuary.
Crowning the hillside is a 72-foot (22 meter) statue of the Virgin Mary. At her feet is an enormous amphitheater and tiered garden lined with rows of flowers and trees.
The sanctuary sits just outside the garden, next to a statue of Pope John Paul II, who blessed the city of Santiago from this summit during his visit.
At the top, since we were already sweating through our clothes, we decided to partake in one of Chile’s most famous treats–mote con huesillos. It’s a chilled drink made from peaches and husked wheat–chewy, saccharine-sweet, and refreshing on a summer day.
I don’t have a huge sweet tooth so sadly, I didn’t love it (it’s really, truly, so sugary)–but Matt did, and he gamely drank both of ours while we sat on the wall and enjoyed the views of Santiago.
On our way back to our hotel that afternoon, we passed once again through the Bellavista area, turning into the neighborhood so I could catch a glimpse of Pablo Neruda’s Santiago home, La Chascona, in its signature deep blue.
Afterward, at Patio Bellavista, an outdoor shopping area, we bought bracelets of lapis lazuli (Chile is home to two major deposits of this “blue gold” in the world). We then feasted on chorrillana, a favorite Chilean dish of French fries topped with basically whatever you want.
Later that evening, as we walked back through Parque Forestal, we heard shouting and sirens. When we turned around, we saw a mob of people running away from armored police vans. Everywhere around us, passersby stopped and stared, some shouting at the police, some cheering on the mob. Matt and I doubled down on our pace and practically ran back to the hotel, but not before spying a newly-destroyed statue in the park.
