Day 65 - View of Santiago

January 19 - Santiago, Chile

In the city of Santiago, there are several big hills that stand out amongst the tall buildings – the largest is called Cerro San Cristobal.  We laced up our running shoes, thinking we’d run/walk the 3K to the hill, then the 4 or so K up.  We took the long way up, apparently, coming up the backside, which consisted of road running, with a stripe on the road for pedestrians, bikes that had made the difficult journey up were not whizzing by.  We passed a picnic area, a few good views, and worked our way up the final steps to reach a sculpture of Mary at the top.  The area at the top consisted of a stadium-like set of stairs up to the sculpture, a small church, a large nativity, and a feeling evoked by music plumbed through speakers, a enchanting woman’s voice, singing beautiful melody accompanied by an acoustic guitar.  There was magic in this place.  We overheard a guide discussing with some Brits behind us – “I don’t understand why they didn’t have the Pope speak here”.  He was right – it would be the perfect backdrop for the Pope.  (Later I realized the area would not allow for the capacity of Pope-viewers.

We went down a faster, more common way, muttering “Buenas dias” to the people on their way up and down, some in workout clothes like us, others in flip flops and dresses.

When we arrived at the bottom, we realized this was the main entrance entrance – and it was packed with cars parking, a few buses, people selling.  They might have a capacity or something for cars, because it seemed like people were waiting.

We headed back to the apartment and made a breakfast with veggies and eggs. 

I went out back out for a walk while Evan practiced coding.  I scouted out another hill in town, paid a visit to the artesenal shop hidden in a cave-like room beneath the hill, and a more commercial group of artesan shops.  I did a circle back towards the apartment to meet Evan in the pool, shared by the two apartment complexes.  During the week, it didn’t open until 2 PM!  By the time we got done, there were a few others around and in the pool .  There was kid there was doing the butterfly like a boss.  The sun was hot and so we enjoyed it for a bit then welcomed the shade that took over as the sun breached and start to lower behind the 28 floor building.  With some encouraging from the butterfly swimmer claiming the water was nice, Evan took a dip in, only to find the water was frigid, (but also refreshing).

We headed to the art museum, Bella Artes, which conveniently close (and free!).  The building was beautiful and the art was really amazing.  There was a temporary photography exhibit that I found most interesting, photographer Luis Poirot.  He was a photographer for theater first and foremost.  The exhibit included his commentary along the timeline of his life, including boughts of depression and health issues.

We went to early dinner at Tambo, a peruvian fusion restaurant in the Bella Artes neighborhood.  We both had different versions of risotto dishes with seafood. 

From there, we hoped the subway to the outskirts to catch Star Wars where we were sure was in English with Spanish subtitles, both to avoid poor overdubbing and to maximize our understsanding.  The movie was surprisingly busy.  We enjoyed the movie (and have some critiques)…it’s been a very long time (year +) since I’ve been to a real movie, so I was pretty enthralled.

We had Uber ready just in case, but we were able to easily navigate the last subway train of the evening, rolling into the station nearest our apartment at approx. midnight.