A Square Meal

A Square Meal
Santiago, Chile

Santiago, Chile

After weeks of living in tiny little South American towns about as far from real civilisation as we could get going to Santiago was a massive shock to the system. Not only was it big and bustling and busy, we also inadvertently arrived on the night of the opening match of the Copa America football tournament which just happened to be hosted in Chile and Chile were playing that night in Santiago.

We had booked a small Airbnb apartment for our stay and the owner had kindly booked a taxi to transfer us from the airport. Our flight was about 20 minutes late landing in Santiago which was totally out of our control, however our taxi driver was furious at us as it meant we hit the rush hour traffic and potentially meant that he was going to miss kick off. He huffed and puffed and drove like a loonatic on every stretch of open road and the only time he spoke was to sing along to ‘Happy’ on the radio, oh how ironic. Our welcome into Santiago didn’t get much better that evening, we headed out to get some provisions so we could make use of our private kitchen and every shop we went in the staff just shouted at us in a weird fast Spanish that was almost unrecognisable from what we had been speaking and learning in Bolivia and Peru. It turns out that Chilean and Argentinian Spanish was quite different as they speak a lot of slang, drop the end off of words and speak at the speed of light meaning that we were back to square one with our language skills as good as useless.

Santiago wasn’t all bad, it is just big and bustling and a bit soulless compared to the beautiful places that we had come from. On the plus side being in real civilisation meant real shops and it didn’t take long for us to find a cheap clothes shop to replace my jeans (as the cropped jeans and leg warmers look was a bit 80’s for my liking) and to acquire an additional jumper each to get us through the bitter winter days and nights.

We took the obligatory Tours for Tips city tour, and sadly it was a bit of a disappointment. The group was so big we couldn’t get close to even hear the tour guide who just seemed to stand us in the busiest, shadiest and coldest spots in Santiago. We were escorted by a selection of robust street dogs who are extremely well cared for in Santiago, they are given collars, coats, beds and more than enough food and the locals take them in and hide them whenever the dog catcher is in town. Tim discovered his new favourite Chilean meal, a Completo; a hot dog full of mashed avocado, chopped tomato and smothered in mayonnaise all for less than a dollar. I discovered too late that I could have been ordering the same but with chips rather than a sausage, damn it!

We did see a few cool things on our walking tour, some great pieces of graffiti, some awesome architecture and we got a glimpse inside a special coffee shop. These coffee shops are something of an oddity in Santiago, they are called ‘Coffee With Legs’ and contain female service staff who wear anything from short skirts and high heels to full blown lingerie or bikinis with killer heels. Apparently in the more seedy establishments when they have sold their 100^th coffee of the day they become topless, so to get the best value for money you need to go at around 6pm! We sadly didn’t have time to return to get a caffeine fix in one of these café, much to Tim’s disappointment indeed.

After a disappointing walking tour where our tip was low, very low, we decided to test out the trusty open top bus. This was much more relaxing that the walking tour, although equally cold. We did learn some interesting history about the political upheaval that Chile has faced over the years particularly after the military coup led by General Pinochet between 1973 and 1990. In 1973 Salvadore Allende was the president when the palace was attacked by the combined Chilean forces lead by Pinochet, the palace was shelled and apparently after making a farewell speech live on the radio, Allende committed suicide. There is much controversy over this suicide and in 2011 his body was exhumed for analysis. The conclusion of the investigation was that he did indeed commit suicide but there are many Chileans who still don’t accept this result. During Pinochet’s reign he shut down the parliament, he suffocated political life and shut down all trade unions. Nearly 3,000 people disappeared as a result of political violence and over 30,000 opponents to the regime were tortured and exiled. After having apparently changed Chile for the better and made it the best performing economy in South America, Pinochet stepped down in 1990 but continued to act as commander-in-chief of the Chilean Army until April 1998. In October 1998 during a visit to London Pinochet was arrested in connection with several human rights allegations, he returned to Chile and was placed under house arrest due to his ill health and despite attempts to claim immunity from prosecution he was due to stand trial with over 300 charges against him including human rights charges, tax evasion and embezzlement. He died of a heart attack in 2006 before he was able to stand trial and even after his death more accusations arose which included allegations that he was at the centre of an illegal arms trade using the front of many shell companies which sent the money directly to Pinochet’s bank accounts. After his death spontaneous demonstrations broke out around the city half mourning the loss and half celebrating his death. He was denied a state funeral and still today the country is divided over Pinochet.

So that is my mini history of the political madness that Chile has experience, now for something more upbeat, pizza. Tim and I were cold and tired after our days exploring and so found a take away pizza shop near our apartment, we looked at the useful boxes pinned on the wall to determine what size pizza we wanted and determined that a medium sized pizza each would be perfect. What we didn’t take into account was that this pizza shop sold square pizzas which were as big as the box, uh oh, thankfully it was great pizza and served us well as breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next 2 days.

We have quickly learned that cities are not really for us, we like the smaller quieter places and we like to be near the ocean. Luckily for us our next destination had all of those things, onwards to Valparaiso.