Santiago

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After three weeks of traveling the north we were closing in on Chile’s big capital – Santiago. Its not very high on most traveler’s agenda due to its lack of major sights and its high level of air pollution, and also we were not in a particular rush to get and stay here – if not for a visit to the Chinese Embassy fighting our fruitless battle against Chinese bureaucracy.

I will leave the long story to Yang Ke, but in a nutshell we ended up in Chile with only one empty full page in her passport remaining and banged our heads against the “internal rule” (which of course is nowhere stated and we weren’t aware before) that no new passport can be issued outside of China or your country of residency. As you can expect we didn’t have any luck trying to gain sympathy for our situation and even our offerings of expensive rice wine were to no avail – thanks Xi Jinping!   [just kidding!]

On the positive side we had a great accommodation for our stay, thanks to a wonderful family we met in our hostel in San Pedro, who invited us to their mansion, despite not even being in Santiago at that time!! Only a Peruvian maid and a cute dog were guarding the house and both welcomed us wholeheartedly 😀

After a depressive day with the embassy, we were greeted the next day by a beautiful (and rare!) blue sky, thanks to a previous rain clearing up the pollution. We took the opportunity to hike up the central hill Cerro San Cristobal, a large nature reserve with nice views on Santiago and its Gran Torre – the (creatively named) largest skyscraper in South America.

Its here that we discovered the unusual but very tasty and refreshing drink Mate con Huesillo – made from wheat and peaches and with a whole peach inside.

The park’s summit is occupied by the compulsory Christian statue – this time of Virgin Mary, but more interestingly also comes with an open-air church / amphitheater.

Santiago has a few smaller districts worth a stroll, like the barrio Paris-Londres or the barrio Brasil, but if you are from Europe those wont excite you too much.

Plaza de Armas is again a nice central square with a few historic buildings in its vicinity, but actually more interesting for its activities. One corner has dozen of busy chess tables, while the area in front of the cathedral is in the hands of several street artists, acrobats and performers – all of good standard and attracting large crowds!

The district Bellavista, with its many cafes, bars and restaurants was probably our favorite and food is certainly an argument for having a longer stop in Santiago. We happily indulged in our first Korean food for months which was very authentic  – in difference to (the few) Chinese restaurants we tried in Chile. And we had great steak house – at an unbeatable quality/price ratio!