Santiago
We flew back to Santiago for a few days, as although this
would be my third visit in as many weeks to the city, including a work trip, we
had barely seen any of it.
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| Santiago |
On the day of our arrival we familiarised ourselves with the
city by walking and getting lost, and we checked out the Metropolitan
Cathedral, and the Santa
Lucia Hill. Santa Lucia Hill is right in the middle of the city, and is a
park made up of fountains, small plazas, monuments and panoramic viewpoints, or
‘miradors’.
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| View over Santiago |
We were staying for a couple of nights on busy street called
Morande.
This district was very nice but it seemed to be more of a commercial area
judging by the numerous office blocks there. We were right next to Plaza
de Armas, one of the main squares, and so the next day we did our favourite
thing…took a free walking
tour of course. The tour is daily at 10am and 3pm from outside the Metropolitan
Cathedral in the Plaza. This was a great tour – our guide was an actor as
well – and as well as finding out about the major landmarks of the city, such
as Santa Lucia Hill, the Presidential
House, or ‘La Moneda’,and the various museums (public ones were closed due
to strikes, all are closed on Monday), we also found out about the best places
to go out, to eat, to drink, we learned of life under the dictatorial regime of
General Pinochet and the hardships the Chilean people suffered.
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| Santiago in bloom |
We met a couple on the tour who we went for drinks with
afterwards in the trendy Bellavista
neighbourhood, where the tour finished. As we sat chatting and drinking pisco
sours in the sunshine, our friends reached down for their rucksack…which had
disappeared. We alerted the bar staff who called the police, and when they
checked the CCTV footage, there were 2 guys who had sat at the table just
behind us, managing to slyly reach down and whisk the bag away. Our friends
were annoyed but when they realised that the only valuable item in the bag was
one of their passports, they were relieved. A bit of hanging around the next
day at the embassy and they were issued with emergency travel documents. We
sunk a few more piscos and then scoured the area checking the bins as we went
for any sign of the bag. Funnily enough our friend was a Liverpool FC fan…he
was great at bin-dipping.
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| Bellavista |
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| Plaza de Armas |
He came to power after the Socialist President Allende was
overthrown by a military coup on 11 September 1973, with assistance from the US
government which was fearful of the influence the Socialist President Allende
may have, and of a potential Communist movement across Latin America. The US
President, Nixon, personally authorised up to $1 million to support the
right-wing newspaper, El Mercurio, which was full of propaganda and 7 months
later authorised another $965,000. In fact payments to the paper went on until
mid-1974. The US government also caused blockades so that food was not getting
into Chile and this led to the people blaming President Allende and rising up,
attacking the Presidential House. When the military stepped in, the President
was still in the House and was found to have ‘committed suicide’. Pinochet
reluctantly (!) stepped in and his reign lasted until 1990.
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| Santiago street art |
Pinochet and his henchmen committed many atrocities against
anyone they thought had spoken out or were plotting against them or their
dictatorial regime. The military in Chile murdered and ‘disappeared’ almost
3,200 citizens and thousands others were tortured, imprisoned or exiled for
being perceived as left-wing or communists including writers, university
lecturers and musicians. Pinochet also ordered the murder of people just to
send a message of fear to others. An example of this was the notorious caravan
of death. This was a military death squad which was dispatched in a
helicopter to the north of Chile, including Calama and the Atacama desert. This
death squad held a list of men who were deemed to have been dissidents of the
regime, trouble makers and those in positions of power that could use their
power to cause trouble for the regime. Many of these men had no political
leanings and obeyed the orders of the military but despite this, they were shot
dead. Today many families are still
scouring the Atacama desert for their loved ones, and remains have been found
in the Pacific ocean.
When Pinochet called the referendum in 1988 to ask the
people if he should remain as President or step down, the result was 56% in
favour of him stepping down and although he remained in power for a further 2
years, he was finally ousted. He ended up fleeing to London where he was
arrested in 1998 and finally extradited by the Spanish who wanted justice for
several Spanish citizens that had been killed by his regime. He was taken back
to Chile and although a case was being built against him for tax evasion and
corruption, he died on 10 December 2006 before receiving any punishment.
Just across the road from the Museum of Memory and Human
Rights is the Natural
History Museum, Baby D’s favourite type of museum after train museums…!
There we learned about the indigenous animals in Chile, the country’s geography
and geology. We headed back to Santa Isabel to meet a Chilean friend we’d met
in San Pedro, for dinner and drinks where we finally got to sample the Chilean
dish, which they describe as a corn cake called ‘pastel
de choclo’. Imagine a cottage pie with mince, onions, chicken, raisins and
olives, and on the top, instead of mashed potato, there is mashed corn. It
wasn’t my cup of tea as I am not a fan of corn but Baby D loved it.
Valparaiso
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| Valparaiso |
Up bright and early the next day to take the bus to Valparaiso
for the day. Valparaiso is a city around an hour and a half, or 115km from
Santiago. We were intending to stay over for a couple of days but we were
enjoying Santiago too much so we bussed there and back on the same day,
arriving just in time for a free walking tour
(10am and 3pm at Plaza Anibal Pinto), accompanied by a pack of friendly street
dogs.
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| View over Valparaiso |
Valparaiso is a vibrant, youthful city, covered in street
art and is built on a hillside with colourful homes dotted across it. Much of
the city which is right on the seafront, was constructed on reclaimed land, and
there was no city plan when it was built so you’ll find a cemetery on top of a
hill instead of expensive houses with views, as would normally be the case in
cities with urban plans.
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| Valparaiso |
Valparaiso is well used to forest fires and after
devastating fires in 2014, the Mayor told those affected that they would be
provided with tents, food and drink the following night. When the people
complained saying they needed shelter and food now, especially because of the children, he replied saying – did I
ask you to live here? This notorious response is graffitied in the town as a
reminder to the people not to vote him in again.
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| Walking tour companions |
The town has a funicular and
at the top is a slide down to a street below which we all had to take. That was
a first on a walking tour. The National Congress of Chile is held in Valparaiso
rather than Santiago, because Pinochet’s family lived there and he wanted to
see more of his family.
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| Valparaiso |
After the tour we visited the artisanal markets and
then headed off to the bus back to Santiago. There were two bus stations easily
accessible for us to get to Valparaiso Universidad de Santiago or Pajaritas.
The bus was around 16,00 Pesos return for 2 of us. Valparaiso is definitely
worth a visit and if we’d have had more time we would have stayed a couple of
nights.
#santiago #chile #valparaiso #museumofmemoryandhumanrightssantiago #santaluciahill #bellavista
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