Chile Fjords-Patagonia Day 3
Chile Fjords-Patagonia
OAT Day 03 – Sunday, December 2, 2007 - Santiago City Tour
We began our morning with a buffet breakfast at our hotel and then met our OAT group in the lobby at 8:55. We were happy to note that María Elena has stressed promptness in her expectations for the group.
We began our city tour by walking with our guide, Rodrigo Ossandon. He gave us a brief synopsis of the day’s agenda as well as a little about the weather and culture of the city. We walked just a few blocks to the Los Leones subway station.
Until six months ago Santiago had over 7,000 buses. Now they have 3,000 and have expanded the subway lines to cut down on the pollution.
We got off the subway at the Universidad de Chile station and Rodrigo pointed out the beautiful wall paintings depicting the discovery of Chile by the Spanish. Like many capital cities of the world, the subway system here is also a center of art and culture for the local people as well as tourists.
Home to a third of Chile’s 12 million people, Santiago rests at the confluence of the Mapocho and Maipu rivers, surrounded on all sides by Andean peaks.
To be sure, it’s a breathtaking setting for a capital that has witnessed a remarkable history—from settlement by conquistadors in 1541 to the Marxist, military, and finally, democratic governments of the twentieth century.
We sat at the base of the General Bernardo O’Higgins statue where Rodrigo told us the historical background of this Irish-Chilean leader in the independence movement of Chile.
On our walking tour this morning we saw the best of Santiago, passing by several historic monuments and buildings, including the Palacio de la Moneda, the current seat of the government, and the city’s most important plaza, the Plaza de Armas, which has been the heart of Santiago since its origin in 1541.
Ringing the plaza are many important buildings that are considered national monuments. Here we saw the Correo Central (main post office), Iglesia Catedral (Cathedral Church), the Municipalidad de Santiago (City Hall), and the National Historic Museum.
Our next stop was the Café Caribe, “coffee with legs”, where the young women served coffee in very tight short dresses. This is sort of a cross between Hooters and Starbucks but has certainly been a financial boom in the economy of Chile.
After walking through a Sunday street market we found ourselves at the Plaza de Armas. In the bandstand the Santiago Military Band, as it does every Sunday, played a concert. We stood in the shade and listened to the music while a few in our group went to visit the cathedral we had seen last week.
Nearby, we found the Mercado Central (Central Market), an elegant wrought-iron structure inaugurated in 1872 as the site of a National Exhibition. Now it is the city’s central market, filled with colorful stalls and seafood eateries (called marisquerias).
We enjoyed our lunch at El Galeon, a famous seafood restaurant within the market. We began our meal with a fresh tuna and shrimp appetizer and then a salad. The main course was rice or papas fritas (French fries) along with four types of fish.
We shared Pacific Salmon, Red Snapper, Sea Bass, and Conger Eel (kingclip) all served family style. For those of us who tried the eel we found it to be the tastiest on the platter. Our dessert was a fresh fruit cocktail.
At 1:30 we got on our big bus that took us to the Pre-Columbian Museum, where we saw a superb collection of artifacts, ceramics, and textiles from all of the Americas. The museum is housed in a lovely colonial building that was once the Royal Customs House.
We also learned the proud history of the Mapuche, the only Indians in the Americas to successfully resist the Spaniards throughout the colonial period. There was a special display on the Moche Indians from Peru.
We met at the entrance of the museum at 3:00 and boarded our bus again for a ride through the residential districts of Vitacura and Los Condes, where we saw beautiful homes and parks.
On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at one of Santiago’s leading lapis lazuli shops, Faba, where we learned about this semi-precious stone that is found only in Chile and Afghanistan. Several of our group made purchases of jewelry made from this beautiful blue stone.
At 4:30 we returned to the hotel. María Elena gave us the information we needed for tomorrow’s optional tour and some suggestions on dinner locations. At 8 PM we went for a walk, got a bite to eat and then returned to our hotel by 9:30.
Accommodations: Hotel TorreMayor - - - Meal: B, L
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Comments
Santiago Subway
Children in Tradition Attire
Coffee with Legs
Lunch at El Galeon
Lapis Lazuli
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