A damn hot city trip! - Santiago

25/12 - 29/12

On Christmas day we left Pichilemu by bus towards the capital of Chile. The city welcomed us with 34 degrees and empty streets, slightly unusual in a 7 million city. We realized that Chileans celebrate Christmas on December 25th and it was going to be quite difficult to satisfy our hunger - not even Burger King was open. We took the subway to the center to our first Airbnb accommodation, where a water leak awaited us. The hosts - Pablo and Jean - were still visiting their families in the countryside and were returning to Santiago the next day. Water was coming from the ceiling in the apartment and slowly flooded the kitchen floor. After informing Pablo about it, the challenging part came - I had to communicate with the concierge of the housing complex and ask him to turn off the water supply upstairs. As you can imagine, this was not easy with my lack of Spanish skills. Finally, after some complicated actions and with the help of Pablo via WhatsApp and my hand and foot communication, the concierge turned off some water supply. However, a few hours later, we found out that he turned off the wrong one...so we had to spend the night wiping the water off the floor and hoping it wouldn't get worse. I didn't have a particularly peaceful night as I kept waking up and worrying about the condition of the kitchen. But the heat in our room and the noise of the big city also bothered me at first...

Our stay in the huge metropolis was a (almost) classic city trip. Luki prepared a walking route through the city center for the first day. We walked through the beautiful main square 'Plaza de Armas' to the big 'Mercado Central' and from Cerro Santa Lucía we got a first impression of the size of the city.

After so much walking, we deserved a break. In Chile, they love sandwiches in all kinds of variations. However, these are not like sandwiches we know, but rather overloaded burgers, mainly with beef or pork and the favorite ingredient of Chileans - mayonnaise. A popular variation of the food is 'Italiano', which means green-white-red (avocado-mayonnaise-tomato). I barely managed to eat half of my sandwich. After that, we needed a siesta.

We usually spent the evenings around the corner in the pedestrian zone, where we could comfortably watch the nightly activities. In Santiago, a lot happens in the streets. There are many people who try to earn some money in different ways - shoe polishing is still a real business here.

On the second day, we planned to explore 'Cerro San Cristobal', the second highest mountain in Santiago. We walked a few hundred meters uphill in the scorching heat until we reached the highest point, where a chapel and the statue of the Virgin Mary are located. We skipped the selfie with the papal figure and were more interested in the view of the city from up there.

Once we reached the top, we tried the highly recommended Chilean refreshment - Mote con huesillo. This is a non-alcoholic peach juice with wheat grains for spooning. For our taste, the drink was too sweet and Luki was a bit disgusted by the floating wheat grains.

After the sugar break, we bought tickets for the cable car ride to the other end of Cerro San Cristobal. Only in the air did we see the full splendor of the Chilean capital - at the foot of the Andes and consisting of a total of 26 merged comunas, Santiago is an impressive city in terms of area.

Since we had walked a lot in the first two days and the heat made strolling less enjoyable, we spent the last day in the swimming pool at Cerro San Cristobal. The swimming facility was well maintained and the ideal place to escape the relentless heat in the metropolis.

Conclusion:

Santiago is a really expansive city and has some beautiful places to offer - the view from the cable car was certainly the highlight of our stay. However, the weather - we had an average of 34 degrees every day - made the exploration tours a bit difficult. Our host Pablo told us that it is always so hot at this time of year since Santiago is actually at the lower end of the Atacama Desert. It hardly ever rains in the summer (last year only once), so the city obviously can't cool down.

Hasta pronto!

E&L

>> Next stop: Valparaíso <<