New Years Day in Santiago de Chile

NNew Years day is such a great day to wander around the city.  Public transit (subways etc) is still open, but pretty much everything else is closed.   First, we caught the subway to Santiago Centro and walked past the palace and around all of the old govermnment buildings.  Next, we visited the Plaza de Armes.  The Catedral was covered over on the outside, probably for repairs, which was unfortunate as it is one of the best oldest and most beautiful buildings in the city.  We walked past all the closed shops and reached Mercado Central, which was open and busy.  Apparently, it is a very popular place to go and eat seafood on New Years Day, as it is considered something of a hangover cure.   The Mercado used to be a typical south american market but is now a huge batch of restaurants and shops sharing the space.  We ended up having lunch there.

The Presidential Palace

Mercado Centro

   Next up was Cerro Santa Lucia (hill).  This is a small hill in the middle of Santiago, which for the most part otherwise is very flat.   The hill is significant, as it was used by the Spanish since the very first day of conquering the area.  Starting in 1541 it was used as both a lookout and reconnassance point.  The rest of the cosntruction of the hill was done in 1816, when the fort and chapel that are still there today was built.

Santa Lucia

Santa Lucia

   Late in the afternoon, we headed back to the Bella Vista section of the town and headed for Cerro San Cristobal, This the second and much larger of Santiago's famous hills.   In Bella Vista we caught the furnicular (elevator-cable car gismo) to the top of the hill.   The ascent was quite dramatic, as it rised to over 1000 feet above the rest of the city in about 5 minutes.  At the top of the hill is a fantastic park with amazing views of the city in all drections.  Also at the summit is the statue of The Immaculate Conception, which although not as tall as the one in Brazil, can still be seen from ost of the city below. Our timing was a little late, and the furnicular was no longer running both ways, so we walked our way down the hill.  After about a 4 kilometer walk, we found ourselves close to the bottom, but even closer back to Providencia and our hotel.  With about another 2 kilometers left to get back to Bella Vista, we paid $4 for a cab to bring us there.  

Looking down at a pasing furnicular on our way up

Statue at the top of San Christobal

Looking down at the city from San Christobal

  Now being quite late, around 9pm, we sat down for dinner.  Carolyn and I both shared the BBQ. Platter, which was huge and totally delicious.  After dinner and a few drinks, we walked around a little more with Carolyn trying to find street dogs to feed our leftovers to.  Overall a pretty fun and busy day in Santiago.

 A couple of notes for the day.  Although Chile is still considered 3rd world, for the most part, the areas we have been in so far show very little of this.  We did see certain kindnesses that you might now see elsewhere though.  In the morning, we saw a shop owner or worker head out onto the streets and feed one of the street dogs some dog food and at the end of the day, when we finished and paid for dinner and started to leave, I saw the waiter pick up our plates and give the left overs to a hungry guy sitting on a bench near by.