We are staying at an apartment hotel right downtown in Santiago. The weather yesterday was very clear, with a view of the Andes over the city. The picture was taken from our window. The apartment hotel is actually only a few floors of a huge, 4 building complex of apartments, each one over 20 stories high.
We did a walking tour of the city with a group called Free Tours. The idea is that after the tour you pay by donation. It was great. The guide was a young guy from Edinburg named Johnny, who´s been living here for a year. We started in the main square of the city, the Plaza de Armas, which has artists, performers, speakers, and people idling about. It is surrounded by a cathedral and important government buildings from the 1700s or 1800s.
The tour covered the main parts of central Santiago: past the presidential palace and through interesting neighbourhoods like Lastarria and Bella Vista. It was about 3 1/2 hours long, and it was quite hot. Afterward we had lunch at a restaurant in Bella Vista that served home cooked Chilean food.
Today was cloudy and a bit cooler. We took the subway to the Parque Quinta Normal, a lovely vast space of trees, a little lake where people can rent paddle boats, and a waterpark for the kids.
Next we went to the the nearby Museum of Memory and Human Rights - about the atrocities of the Pinoche regime. Unfortunately the museums are closed today because there is an election.
Overall, Santiago feels like a European city. It is very clean - which is even more impressive when you find out the municipal workers have been on strike. The people seem quite friendly and open, and public displays of affection are very common - so romantic!
It is too bad we don´t know more Spanish. In contrast to travelling in Asia, where English is like the international language, I feel more of a language barrier here, where even most other travellers speak Spanish so there is little or no information in English.
You're lucky you could see the mountains - we could only see smog.
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