Two Days in Santiago, Chile
We’re here!! We’re on the other side of the world!! Honestly it still hasn’t sinked in yet that we’re both traveling “full-time” and not going back to work in a week or two. I’ve been trying to think more about how I want to spend my time outside of exploring and traveling and what kind of hobbies I can focus on that would fit into that lifestyle. I think writing / journaling is going to be a big one for me, maybe I’ll even start to feel like I’m finding my voice. I’ve also been journaling a bit in the new iOS Journal app, and in my notebook, so I have plenty of tools ready whenever I want to write. I see writing a bit like talking to myself, and I think that’s a skill I want to develop more because writing and enjoying spending time with yourself is a powerful way to show yourself love.
My goal for this update is to share what Ash & I did for the last two days in Santiago before we flew to Puerto Natales in southern Chile. We didn’t have a whole lot of time in Santiago, but I think we did pretty well getting around and seeing some highlights. We also made a few mistakes that in the end were good learning experiences, and can maybe serve as tips for others trying to plan out a trip like this. I hesitate to call them mistakes too because we were SO tired the first day since we had traveled over 24 hours, we were very sleepy in everything we tried to do so of course we forgot a lot of things.
DAY ONE
When we first arrived we took an uber directly to the hostel and we learned that uber and other rideshare apps are still illegal in Chile 😯so one of us needed to sit in the front so that it looked like the driver was someone we knew. Honestly tho our driver Roony came thru for us and told us about a cool park to check out (more on that on DAY TWO) and some other helpful tips.
We checked into our hostel at Casa Bellavista, it was a very small room but comfortable and clean! We picked this neighborhood because it had a few gay bars and we read that it was a pretty safe and vibrant area. So far our strategy for finding places to stay has been to look for 🏳️🌈flags so that we can feel a bit safer.
Tired AF we continued on our day at the bottom of Cerro San Cristóbal at the Pio Nono station and bought an all-day round trip ticket for transportation around the park that included the Funicular, the Teleférico and buses with panoramic views. Cerro San Cristóbal (or Tupahue in Mapuche) is a very steep hill in Santiago reaching 300 meters above the city and is the third highest peak of the city. We started with the Funicular train that took us to the top of the hill where we saw incredible 360 views of the whole city and a 22 meter tall statue of Mary that our tour guide said you can see from all over the city. At this point we realized we really should’ve brought more stuff – in our post-flight delirium we were so excited to put down our heavy bags we didn’t even think about grabbing essentials like sunscreen, a hat, and sunglasses. ALSO we were surrounded by a beautiful scenic park and we completely forgot our tripod!!! 🤦🏻♀️It was very HOT and SUNNY so we were hopping from shady spot to shady spot while we made our way through the park.
Once we got to the top of the hill, we rode on an aerial gondola called Teleférico down to La Piscina Tupahue. Here we saw an old observatory tower that is no longer in use and a huge public swimming pool. The pool looked so dreamy and we were one of the first people there because they open at 10:30am. HOT TIP - if you want to go to the pool you need to reserve your entrance online ahead of time and then bring pesos with you to pay in person. We didn’t know any of this and tried to go on the second day only to realize it was sold out 😭.
After the park we passed out HARD for a couple hours, so necessary and I really felt a lot better after that. After the nap we decided to explore the nearby neighborhoods, we walked around Bellavista and then crossed the river to see Lastarria, which we read about as the “cool” neighborhood. Definitely a lot of cool stuff to see in Lastarria, there were a ton of street vendors selling vintage clothes, records, art, books, and handmade crafts. There’s also a lot of singers and street performers, and the whole vibe brought me back to life a bit.
After stumbling around for a couple hours we found this Alice in Wonderland themed restaurant called Wonderland Cafe and decided to stop in for a snack. The cafe was soooo cute, it was covered with plants and white rabbits and it had both indoor and outdoor seating. We sat in a little outdoor patio area and ordered ginger mint lemonades and a gluten free passion fruit cake. It was loooovely - the passion fruit flavor really came through in the cake so a big win for the Great Yella Bake-Off competition that only exists in my head. And my tummy.
Overall I’d say this was a super fun first day especially because energy was at an all time low and we were extremely sleep deprived, but we still saw an amazing view of the city, ate some good food, and talked to some locals ✨
DAY TWO
Hola, it’s Ash! I can’t believe we’re here in a new hemisphere, one of our uber drivers said Chile is upside down California. We’re upside down because southern Chile is cold like NorCal and the northern Chile is hot like SoCal haha Chile also kisses the pacific ocean on a bunch of platonic plates, so they also have earthquakes but they call them tremores (tremors) they only call them terremoto (earthquakes) if they’re above an 8 haha I really do feel like an alien on a mirrored planet of mine, I don’t know the language very well but I’m trying to show that I come in peace haha anyways here’s how day two went:
Over breakfast we planned out what we wanted to do. Our first day was hot and exhausting so I thought a pool day would be nice. I imagined us cooling off and relaxing poolside, I even packed our GoPro so we could get some underwater shots. We also wanted to visit a park that our uber driver Roony recommended to us, all I remember him saying was “Parque Bicentenario.” After the park the plan was to take the Tours 4 Tips walking tour in front of Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes.
After breakfast we started our mission, on our walk Daniela opened the bottle of water I got for us and it exploded. haha I felt so bad I didn’t see that it said sparkling water in Spanish on it. We had a laugh about it and walked on. Not only are there so many cool murals everywhere I thought it was really cool to see Free Palestine graffiti and a Palestinian restaurant. Later that day we learned there’s a large Palestinian community in Santiago. We also saw these two stray dogs that were on their own just hanging out and walking down the street in front of us like they knew exactly where they were going. They even crossed the street at a crosswalk at the right time.
Once we get to the park we see a bunch of balls or spheres and a playground. We’re walking up the path not really understanding why our uber driver recommended it to us haha we were like does he think we’re babies? Halfway into the park we realized THE PARK WAS FOR BABIES. One of the staff came up to us and stressed in Spanish “este Parque es para NIÑOS” lol. haha we went to “El Parque Bicentenario Infancia” instead of “El Parque Bicentenario”
We then took another Uber and tried to go to La Piscina Tupahue but our driver let us know that no cars can drive there so he took us to Pio Nono station where we tried to buy bus tickets. However we found out that the pool sells out quick and it’s also cash only, so we decided to abandon the pool idea and walk to get our money changed at the bank in the Patronato neighborhood. While walking to the bank, we discovered the Little Seoul neighborhood and saw a bunch of different stores and clothing shops. After abandoning poolside dreams, we realized the actual park we wanted to go to was only a 10 min drive away so we got an Uber to the park and the driver dropped us off in front of a film festival entrance. They had a large outdoor screen set up and it looked like they were prepping for a big party. The Bicentenario park was really beautiful and clean and looked like it was newly built. There were a lot of playgrounds and public gyms, and lots of ice cream food trucks. There were also two ponds, one with pigeons and flamenco birds. We took a picture in front of a cool bike sculpture.
We walked the whole length of the park which only took about 30 minutes and then we jumped into another Uber that took us to El Museo des Bellas Artes where we met up with the Tips 4 Tours tour guides. Before we met the guide we went into the museum (most of the museums are free in Santiago!) and saw an exhibit about Lotty Rosenfeld, an artist from the 70s and 80s who used the + symbol to signify political and cultural protest under the Pinochet regime. At 3pm we went on the free historical and political highlights walking tour called Tips 4 Tours with Marcela and Antonia. We loved it - learned a lot of historical information about Santiago and Chile and also some history about muralists Inti and Mono Gonzales. The mural by Inti was really cool because it talked about nature, humanity, our beliefs, and capitalism. One of the quotes from our tour guide we liked went something like: “When we’re hungry we eat, when we’re tired we sleep, and when we find the right person we all fall in love.”
We also went into the GAM Cultural Center which we learned had been a symbol at different time periods for both the dictatorship and socialism. It was first a symbol of socialism because it was built by a large number of highly qualified volunteers in a record time of 9 months all UNPAID. Then it later became a symbol of the dictatorship after it was taken over by the dictator, and they wanted to ruin its image of socialism. After a fire destroyed part of the building, President Michelle Bachelet decided to return it to the people and remodeled it to have transparent glass walls and an open entranceway.
We walked back to Bellavista from Lastarria after the tour and stopped by a restaurant called Liguria because the tour guide told us about how it used to be a huge mansion and it was transformed into a restaurant. The hostess let us come in and explore and take pics and it was really cool. On the wall was a quote that our tour guide said that I didn’t realize was a famous quote until I saw it on the wall, roughly it was like: “There’s two loaves of bread. He eats two, and I eat zero. The economic average says there’s one piece of bread per person”. We then had dinner at Galindo and tried the dish our guide recommended called Pastel de Choclo, which is like a corn stew with chicken, pork, beef, olives, and raisins. It was sweet and savory.
Day two we walked for 12 hours and saw a lot of downtown Santiago and political highlights. I definitely would recommend this walking tour, it’s really made me want to explore more places with walking tours because you just learn so much and can meet other travelers. Thanks to everyone who made it this far and is following along with our journey! Love youuuuu <3