2014/01 Chile trip - Santiago's parks |
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Monday January 20th
Sandie was hard to resuscitate in the morning but she responded well to the breakfast buffet. We were going to explore some of the gardens in Santiago, a day of walking about.
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Santiago Cerro San Lucia |
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There was a lot more traffic on a Monday morning. There are plenty of pedestrian crossings but it was good to see that the locals jaywalk too. At the busier junctions a red light was the signal for jugglers to come out and perform for the motorists; the green was a signal for them to walk through the traffic collecting donations.
We walked across the river to Cerro St Lucia, a hill of volcanic rock turned into gardens and topped by the Castillo 
Hidalgo, an old fort prettied up for the tourists. The gardens held plenty of flowers and cactus under a mixture of palms and gums and acacias, mainly from the southern hemisphere.
We followed the pathways around to the fancy main entrance on the Avenida Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins. What do the locals use for short? In our world it would simply be O’Higgins Ave. Bernardo O’Higgins was the son of a Spaniard born in Ireland; he was inspired by the American Revolution and led the rebellion against Spain that created the country of Chile back in the 1820s.
The entrance was very fancy with fountains and cherubs and arches, typical of Spanish monuments. We climbed steep stairs, chiseled into
the volcanic rock, up to battlements adorned with cannon. We had a cool breeze up there and a view of Santiago’s plentiful skyscrapers. There are few very old buildings in Santiago; frequent catastrophic earthquakes result in lots of remodeling. The place had its share of statues, from conquistadors standing proudly on their plinths to sneaky indios creeping up on them over the rocks.
We were making our way down the hill when there was a massive explosion just above our heads, echoing back and forth across the city. No one took cover so we didn’t either. We later found out that Santiago has a cannon shot at noon every day. Where is the cannon fired? From the battlements just above our heads! Sandie was not amused.
We had lunch at a sidewalk café, sitting as far from the traffic as we could, and then set off walking through back streets towards another hill, the Cerro San Cristobal, part of the Parque Metropolitano. Along the way we were goggling at the city’s commercial graffiti. Rather than ban graffiti the city has embraced it and it is common for businesses, like this hat shop, to have murals advertising their goods and services. An artist with a tray of spraycans was updating one of the murals– in daylight!
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Santiago Cerro San Cristobal |
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The Parque Metropolitano is massive, occupying several hills, linked by roads, trails, and a cable car. We took the funicular up Cerro
San Cristobal, and then climbed steep stairways up to the statue of the virgin; she looks to be well connected, flanked by dozens of aerials, visible when looking up from the city but not from close-up.
We had a good smoggy view out over the city, but that was about as far as we could get. The trail system was closed for maintenance, and the cable car looked to have been out of service for years. We were confined to eating, 
drinking, and shopping. Sandie found a lapis lazuli stall and came away with a lapis penguin, with some parts in alabaster and onyx. Chile and Afghanistan 
are the major sources of lapis lazuli, and the latter is not on our bucket list.
Sandie had spotted a kiosk advertising bus trips to the coastal city of Valparaiso and we stopped there and booked up for the next morning. I‘d worked out how to get there by metro, bus, and taxi, but this was simpler, if more expensive: a Turistik tour of Valparaiso and Vino del Mar, which we wouldn’t have got to without adding a train trip to my list.
The kiosk’s credit card machine was defunct so we’d had to find Turistik’s office, tucked away amongst the bars and restaurants in the Patio Bellavista an up-market shopping area, a great place to eat. On our way back we bought a lemon from a tiny fruit stall (to improve the water) and a case of beer for our patio evenings. Opening our patio doors cooled our room nicely. No problem with flies or mosquitoes.