Hola todos. This one will cover our short stay in Santiago before heading to the coast and carrying on south.
After last nights fun and games on arrival it was time to do the usual thing, of booking onto a walking tour of the city. So off I go to the meeting place in Plaza de Armas, i meet up with them a little early and go have a look inside the grand cathedral in the centre of the city. After this the rest of the group arrives.
On the tour they explain the history of Santiago from it’s founding by Pedro Valdivia in 1541 through to the dictatorship under Pinoche to modern times.
The construction of Santiago is a big mix of modern and historic as the city has seen many earthquakes over the years being on one of the most sensitive points where the South American and Nazca plates meet. The city has been destroyed twice by earthquakes, first in 1610 then another in 1960, today the country is better prepared for them but in those times they were not.
Walking through the city we come to a district built in the style of 1900s New York named ‘Barrio New York’ which was from the Golden age of Chile in the late 19th century when they made massive money of selling saltpeter, used at the time to make gunpowder, most of this also coming from the Antofagasta región which they taken by force from Peru and Bolivia in the Pacific war of 1879-84. It’s that war which is why Bolivia does not have a coastline today. Barrio New York did look impressive.
Finally that tour reached the Chilean presidential House where they explained the Pinoche era. In 1973 Pinoche came to power through coup and stayed in power till 1990. In the park outside the presidential House you can still see markings on the trees and nearby houses from the bullet holes from the coup. Today there is still a lot of division in Chile over the Pinoche era. They told us twice in recent years they tried to change the Constitution of Chile but twice they couldn’t come to an agreement. So Chiles constitution today is still the one from the dictatorship. It’s caused a whole load of social issues in the country which are too much to talk about on here but if I remember correctly part of the reason they don’t have universal health care here is because of this constitution not being able to be changed.
The tour ended at a place called Santa Lucia which was an interesting little castle on a hill which was a big fort to defend the city built in the aftermath of the Independence wars. I went up there and it has a great view of the whole city.
Now for the end of this I had planned to head to Valparaíso for a few days after my initial 3 nights here were done. My original plan was to come back to Santiago for a bit after but to skip over the details I had a major falling out with one of my friends back from Córdoba who was coming here, it would mean we couldn’t hang out as a group anymore so following that I decided my best move was to keep heading south from Valparaíso. Sucks but it’s a reminder about how quickly a throwaway comment can ruin relationships. Oh well.
Next blog we get immersed into the street art of Valparaíso.
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