Let's get Spanish - Santiago

Apparently, you can't get jet lag crossing the International Date Line. You can however, gain a day, spend 11 and a half hours on a plane and end up pretty knackered. And thus, we spend the first night and first morning in Santiago fast asleep. It's a good thing we have accumulated a day, owing to the time difference between New Zealand and Chile.

We stir ourselves on our first afternoon to take a walking tour around Santiago. Our guide, Franco, is fabulous, and tells us loads about the history of the city and Chile's recent bloody political past, as well as showing us the best place to get Chilean food and a cocktail likely to blow your head off, the terremoto (earthquake).



Fabulous Franco





Outside the Presidential Palace, scene of Pinochet's 1973 coup


On the tour, we meet a lovely Canadian girl called Sarah, and the three of us agree it would be rude to not try a post-walk terremoto. We settle down in a bar in Bella Vista, and Franco joins us too. In case you're wondering what's in these cocktails, it's the cheapest white wine you can find, topped up with Fernet Branca and a splash of Grenadine, with a large scoop of pineapple ice cream. Sounds horrific, but they're actually not too bad.




Sarah and Vicky drinking terremotos.

Then we tipsily head off into the evening for some Chilean food.





Corn pie. We can't rave enough about corn pie. It's a meat (usually chicken and ham) pie, with olives and a whole boiled egg in it, and the top is made of creamed/blended sweet corn. It is fabulous. We also have porotos with bratwurst; beans mashed with pumpkin, which is wonderful too. We leave the restaurant stuffed and happy.




Corn pie - drool





The following day, we go the the Museum of Memory and Human Rights. I studied Pinochet's coup against Allende's elected government as part of my degree, so this period of Chilean history fascinates me. And it's deeply, deeply moving, the brutality of the army to those who protested against the state, the executions, and the thousands of people still 'missing', whose families have no idea as to their fate or their whereabouts. It's also heartwarming to see the footage of the 1988 referendum, when the country voted 'No' to Pinochet. We leave the museum in a somber mood.

That evening, we head into La Starria for a little bit of Chilean wine tasting - Vick has found a place where we can do wine 'flights' and nibble on some tapas. The wine menu is excellent, and we love the choices of flights we can do, although it does make us look like Edina and Patsy when they bring three glasses of wine each to the table.



Yes, we have six glasses of wine on the table. Deal with it.

Sarah joins us a bit later and brings along her cute American friend, Brett, which calls for even more wine, and we have a fun evening of casual banter, which rates as 'happy' on the drunk-ometer below:








Sarah, Brett and Vicky. Flying with wine.

On what is sadly our last day in Santiago, we go to the city's main church in the Plaza de Armas, then head to Bella Vista for another wonderful lunch (by this point I am ordering god knows what from the menu as my Spanish is practically non existent - this works well in Santiago, but less well in San Pedro de Atacama, more of which later).









Post lunch, we head to the Gabriela Mistral cultural centre. Gabriela Mistral was a poet, feminist and the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize for literature. The cultural centre used to be Pinochet's army headquarters. Sadly, the art galleries are closed, so we get very little culture, but it's an impressive building nonetheless.




Ceiling of the cultural centre.

Our last evening in Santiago is spent packing and laughing hysterically at a bottle of wine on the shape of a man. He even has a little hat. Yes, we are easily amused.




We then head up country to San Pedro de Atacama, Bolivia and the Uyuni salt flats. Next blog to follow.........