Greetings from my second Santiago of the trip, Santiago de Chile. After Ancud I caught a bus to Puerto Montt, and then from there took a (quite comfortable) 12 hour overnight bus ride to Santiago. I’ve been here almost a week, hanging out with my friend Andy, who came down from Seattle to link up for some vacation. At this point I am well and truly not in the small cities and towns of the south anymore – Santiago is a city of around 5 million people, and sprawl is an appropriate descriptor. It’s also, unfortunately, the most polluted city I’ve ever seen – there’s a thick layer of brown all around on the horizon, sometimes so bad that you can’t even see the mountains which surround the city and make the smog so bad. On the other hand, there are lots of parks and green spaces, one of my favorite features that a city can have.

Andy and I have spent lots of time just walking around taking in the city. A lot of areas are sort of nondescript, filled with big square buildings, small shop fronts, bars, etc…, but we have also strolled through some beautiful leafy residential areas, hip artsy neighborhoods, and even in the less interesting areas turning a corner can suddenly reveal a small side street with adorable older houses painted every possible color. On our first day we accidentally stumbled onto Cerro Santa Lucia, a park/hill in the center of town with lots of little paths and greenery, topped by a sort of castle thing, with great views of town. On a different day we also climbed Cerro San Cristobal (in the incredible heat), the highest point in the city, where you can see the apartment buildings stretching off into the distance.

We went to a few museums – to be honest the Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of Contemporary Art were a bit disappointing (in my ever so humble opinion), but the small, out of the way Museo Ralli was great. Its eclectic collection of modern and contemporary art was organized in an interesting way, highlighting both Chilean/South American art and also the museum’s collection of Rene Magritte lithographs and Salvador Dali statues. The museum itself is nestled in a posh neighborhood a ways out from the center, which gave us an interesting change of scenery on the long walk out. Another attraction we visited was La Chascona, Pablo Neruda’s house which he built (and named) for his third wife. It’s quite a complex, and the poet’s imagination and taste certainly shine through. Lastly, earlier today we went to the Museo a Cielo Abierto (Open Air Museum) in the San Miguel neighborhood. If you click on the link you can read a full history and look at the murals, but to briefly summarize, this is a project that was started in 2009 to revitalize and highlight a low income neighborhood by covering the huge housing buildings with murals. At this point there are at least 40 murals, many of which deal with issues important to the community like Chilean heritage or workers’ rights. The murals are huge, most are brightly colored, and all have lots of detail, making for a delightful afternoon strolling around looking.

We’ve also been eating pretty well. The food culture here is interesting. There’s a fair amount of fairly unappetizing food, exemplified by the staple completo, a hot dog usually covered in avocado, tomato, and an astonishing amount of mayonnaise. Don’t get me wrong, it’s delicious at the right time, but it’s not necessarily the tastiest representative food I’ve ever come across. There are tons of medium quality sushi restaurants, and lots of little places selling cheap daily menus, usually fried fish or grilled meat with potatoes and a drink. Seafood is the prize jewel, and we’ve been largely sticking to that. Lots of every type of shellfish, tons of salmon, and various other fish. The other day I had a piece of grouper that may have been the best fish I’ve ever eaten. So that was nice. The other notable food in Santiago is ice cream – they love ice cream here. You can hardly walk two blocks without seeing an ice cream shop, and for a few hours in the early afternoon when the sun is especially hot you can hardly walk two blocks without crossing someone with an ice cream cone in their hand. It’s a cultural practice that I support.

That’s about all I’ve got. I’ve really enjoyed my time here but I think 6 days is enough. I had originally been thinking about settling down in Santiago for a month or two but I think the sprawl and pollution are a bit too much for me, so I’ll be looking to find somewhere else to volunteer teaching or something like that. Tomorrow I’m up (relatively) early to get myself cleaned up and off to the airport, where 13 hours of travel separate me from New York’s ugly weather. I’ll be spending about a week and a half there, visiting Liv and recharging, and then I’ve got a return flight to Santiago March 1st. After that I’m not exactly sure what I’ll be doing – I think I’d like to head north and check out the Atacama desert, and then maybe continue to Peru or Bolivia and settle down to volunteer for a bit. I’ve got some research to do on that point but I’ll update as soon as I know anything more!

Santiago at sunset. Smoggy.

From Cerro San Cristobal. Still smoggy.

This horse has a big butt

From Museo Ralli, which was great

Mural from the Open Air Museum

Another mural