Santiago was amazing! It is so freaking huge, and it seems like there's a neighbourhood for everything. My first day there I went on a free walking tour and I met these 2 cool guys--Ed from Australia, and Jerry from London. The tour was really good and we covered a fair bit of the city and we ended near the base of Cerro san Cristobal which has a giant statue of the 'virgin' Mary and was quite close to the boy`s hostel. We went back to their place and met up with a girl from England named Freddy and climbed up to the top to see the sunset. he view was incredible...it seems it doesn´t matter how many cities you see from the top; the panoramic views never cease to amaze me.
The next day I ended up moving hostels to be at the same place as the other three. I also went to the contemporary art museum which had some amazing exhibits, including a joint project between the mexican government and Chile showcasing Mexican and foreign artists' interpretation of freedom and representations of the revolution in Mexico, meant to highlight the commonality of the Latin American countries. Freddie and I went to the Museo de la Memoria in the afternoon, dedicated to remembering the victims of Pinochet´s reign. It was an incredibly powerful and informative memorial/museum. It's easy to think about a dictatorship and say/think that it's bad, but this actually forced you to face the reality of the atrocities he committed--there was even footage of his speech just following the coup in which he takes responsibility for the people´s 'best interests.'
That night the 4 of us went on a pub crawl which was really fun. A lot of people here seem to think that I'm Brazilian, despite the fact that I don´t speak a word of Portuguese... It was really fun, and I met some cool people from Argentina and a real Brazilian who were telling me all about the best places to go in their countries.
The following day we had all planned on renting bikes and going to the cemetery but of course this being South America, everything was fucking closed, including the bike rental place, so we ended up walking there instead. I really don´t understand how a country can function when everything shuts down 1-2 days a week; it ridiculous! Especially services and places like bike rentals and museums--activities that people would obviously doing when they're not working. It`s so frustrating and backwards. The cemetery ended up being really cool though. They didn´t bury people, they put them in drawers with a plaque instead, and to deal with the lack of space issue, they started building up. It's hilarious--it was like apartment buildings for dead people with different floors and sections on each floor. Despite Freddy's reservations, we had a picnic there and it was really nice and chilling.
That night we went to the supermarket and had a dinner together which was really nice, because it was Ed and mine last nights in Santiago. Ed left the next morning, and Freddie, Jerry, and I ended up just chilling in the amazing courtyard of our hostel in the glorious sun all afternoon. Many things are also closed on Mondays...never mind the 3 hour midday break that most businesses take here. It's amazing anything ever gets done here considering how often people are on break. Santiago was so much fun though, and the Santiago crew made chilling there amazingly awesome!
Cool street art in Santiago
The following day we had all planned on renting bikes and going to the cemetery but of course this being South America, everything was fucking closed, including the bike rental place, so we ended up walking there instead. I really don´t understand how a country can function when everything shuts down 1-2 days a week; it ridiculous! Especially services and places like bike rentals and museums--activities that people would obviously doing when they're not working. It`s so frustrating and backwards. The cemetery ended up being really cool though. They didn´t bury people, they put them in drawers with a plaque instead, and to deal with the lack of space issue, they started building up. It's hilarious--it was like apartment buildings for dead people with different floors and sections on each floor. Despite Freddy's reservations, we had a picnic there and it was really nice and chilling.
Picnic with the dead people.
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