Chile Day 18 - Das Kapitol

Santiago is sort of closed on Monday. After the party-hard weekend, most museums, attractions, churches, stores, and restaurants take a holiday. I had to get creative.

Because I misread Let's Go, I thought that a certain church/memorial was "high above treeline". A long bus ride to a dusty, flat suburb revealed a large monument on the nearby mountain. But certainly no alpine conditions at the memorial itself, a hulking modernist monstrosity with good stained glass work and a closed museum. Supposedly, this is the place where Bernardo O'Higgins won the decisive victory over spanish forces to establish independence. Every town in Chile seems to have an O'Higgins street, usually the most prominent throughfare. At first it seemed strange to have streets with an irish name here, but it made more sense once I learned the history. It's kind of like how every town in the US has a Washington St.

The central train station has dragon-winged llamas guarding the roof. That's so cool.

Visited the fish market for lunch and consumed the biggest bucket of oysters on the half shell I have ever seen. The hardest part was overcoming the language barrier to order, apparently a 4-man job. Dessert at the nearby fruit market made probably the healthiest meal I've eaten since I arrived.

Parque Metropolitan is on a much bigger hill than Cerro Santa Lucia and has better views. But it's nowhere near as interesting with its straightforward observation platform and well-marked system of paths. I enjoyed the breeze there, my only real break from the 30 degree (~90 F!) heat in town.

Other than that, I did a lot of wandering around and shopping for souvenirs. The city is littered with little markets selling a combination of everyday necessities (the detergent store!, the pastic-sheeting store!) and local handicrafts. My book suggests bargaining hard and reducing prices by at least half. It's wrong, or I'm the world's worst haggler. The best I got was token reductions, if any at all. Still, I had ATMed too much money (an over-reaction to my earlier poverty) so I had plenty of cash to blow on llama-themed products. You are nothing in the Chilean tourist trinket market if you haven't festooned your sweaters/socks/shirts/underwear with as many vaguely llama-shaped blobs as possible.

Easy bus to the airport and a crowded flight to Miami. My Argentinian tea-spoon didn't even draw a raised eyebrow from the DEA inspectors. Good riddance, Chile.