Hello friends,
Welcome to my travel blog. I’ll be traveling in Chile and Bolivia for the next two months – being a tourist, volunteering, hiking, getting lost, finding myself, and all the other shenanigans that come with traveling in countries that speak practically no English while I speak practically no Spanish. For now.
As I’m writing this now in a public park in Santiago, leaning against a tree with madrone-like bark, a group of about 15 just set up behind me with a huge drum and some indigenous-like flutes. They sound terrible, and really contrast with Big Theif playing in my right ear, but I don’t mind it one bit. It’s an experience.
Some first impressions to share before I dive in chronologically: According to the shirts the locals wear, they really like the LA Lakers and Metallica. And who knew goth is still a thing? Maybe Durango just doesn’t have many goths, but quite a few passer-bys really rock the look. Hair black and bright red, with blacked-out clothing, lots of makeup, tattoos, piercings. The one part of the look that doesn’t fit is the smiles on their faces. I thought the goths were supposed to be pissed off all the time. Huh.
Anyway, the weather is great, but on the hot side: Sunny, highs in the mid 80’s, lows in the high 50’s. I dont how the goths survive. The city is way cleaner than I expected. Like, literally over 1000 times cleaner than Kolkata, India. I’ve found myself unintentionally comparing Santiago to Kolkata in my head quite a bit, as that was the last time I embarked on a long solo journey. There’s way less honking here. Way less incessant hoards of humans. Still sidewalk vendors selling stuff off of blankets. More following basic rules like using crosswalks. Still selling fruit on street corners. Way less people staring at me. Still impressive old colonial-style architecture. Still figures of Buddha in tourist shops, which confuses me.
I speak more Spanish than I did Hindi, yet communication is just as difficult. Chileans speak so fast! They typically understand my requests… “Tienes cambio por la US Dollar?” I’m sure it’s not proper Spanish, but it works. But then when they say something back to me, I catch approximately negative 12% of what they’re saying. So I nod, smile, say hello, thank you, goodbye. Just like in India. I impressed myself with this sentence earlier today: “Me gustarilla la juga naturales hipertensión sin azúcar (I would like the natural hypertension juice, but without sugar).” I don’t have hypertension, but the Pomelo, lime, and mint smoothie really hit the spot.
Anyway, let’s start from the beginning. On January 6th I flew at 5:45 AM from Detroit to Virginia, then to Panama, and around 1 AM I landed in Chile. A taxi brought me to my air BnB (which oddly enough was cheaper than any hostel, at around $15/night) but when I arrived at around 2 AM I didn’t have any way to contact Alberto, my host. Either did the front desk people. I glanced around at the hard marble-like floor and wondered if that was going to be my bed. There was no wifi, which I needed to contact Alberto. I didn’t have his room number, a picture, or even his last name. Thankfully he stayed up for me, and after a little while the front desk woman shared a hotspot signal with me, so we connected, and I was in.
January 7th was my first and only full day in Santiago. A huge bird of prey, perhaps an Andean Condor, was stooped on a tall construction crane right outside my window when I woke up. Alberto was filling the apartment with masterful Latin-style classical guitar as I drifted out of my slumber. Life down on the streets was busy buzzing, and I wanted to swim through it all.
What is this world? How will people look at me? Will I stand out? What do the streets of Santiago feel like?
This, I was determined to find an answer for.
So, I walked around. A lot. Like, 12 miles a lot. First things first, I got some fresh mango juice. Muy delicioso! After that I was on a task to find an adapter for my chargers. My research told me that they use the same outlets as they do in the US. Well, that was clearly not the case. But oh wait, that was Peru. This is Chile.
A little side note: I was planning on spending my first month of travel in Peru. Then their president got impeached, and violent protests erupted across country. People were shot, roads were blocked off, and American tourists were “stranded” near Maccu Picchu, unable to fly home for many days. Well, that was enough to divert me to another country. So… voila! Chile 🇨🇱
Another tangential update: the musicians next to me in the park aren’t half bad. They were warming up earlier. Now they’re playing some uptempo traditional Chilean music together. I paused Big Thief so I could appreciate them more fully. Oh, and now it’s an a capella break. Intriguing. Anyway…
Once I took care of my logistical tasks, I was on my merry way to leisure activities. First stop: Santa Lucía park. It’s a little extinct volcano that they turned into a lush garden. And imported parrots? I don’t know if they’re native here, but there were a couple snacking on some leaves that I haven’t seen anywhere else. LOTS of pigeons, though. The park was lovely and full of families, couples, friends, and some older men in Metallica shirts and gothic garb doing a photo shoot near a royal old fountain with many flowers all around. Nice look. Way to find balance, and push societal expectations. I soaked in all the well-maintained tropical flowers and trees. I was surprised, honestly, by how nice it was. Several flights of rugged stairs took me to a lookout of the city. Enormous would be an understatement. Rivaling Kolkata in its vast sprawling, but more skyscrapers, and towering mountains constantly in the backdrop.
After Santa Lucía park I wandered over to the next big green space on Google Maps, where I am now: Parque Forestal. Full of various manicured trees, it’s more like an arboretum than a forest. And it’s surprisingly clean, like the rest of Santiago. Entrance is free to the modern art museum that lies within the park. The exhibitions were for the most part, shiny and unsettling. Just what I want out of modern art. The park was full of romance, pigeons, vendors, inviting patches of shade, and only a few homeless folks. Nothing too out of the ordinary for any park in any part of the world. Oh, except for the Pokémon Go gathering that had a swarm of people signing up, right next to the thousands of little furry Pokémon figures and binders full of Pokémon cards. I had forgotten about Pokémon for a hot minute, but walking around Santiago that’s impossible, as every other block there’s a Poke something poking out somewhere.
After Parque Forestal, I went to one of the biggest tourist attractions in Santiago: Cerro San Crístobal. There’s a tram that takes you up about 1,000 feet to a huge Virgin Mary statue at the peak of the hill. My Air BnB host, Alberto, told me that it had the best views of the entire city. There was a long line to purchase tram tickets, so I walked it instead. It was hot and dry, which was reflected in the sparse bushy yellow-brown vegetation. The view from the top was worth all the butt-sweat I acquired on the way up. I was humbled by how the Andes made such a big city look so small. The skyscapers dwarfed by the 14’ers (Colorado slang for mountains over 14,000 feet) looked like pieces in a miniature movie set. Especially since Santiago is only at around 1,800 feet above sea level. There was a lot of Christianity up there – in the form of nativity sets, candles, memorials, churches, shrines, and painted crosses. Indeed, there was an aura of holiness in the air.
At this point it was mid-afternoon, I had already walked about 9 miles, and my feet were ready to head back to the Air BnB. And despite not feeling very hungry, I dedided I should eat something on the way back. The restaurants were almost all selling french fries, pizza, hamburgers, chicken tenders, and more sushi than I’ve seen in any other country (including the US). It was hard to find real Chilean food. There was a drink called Mote con Huesillo, advertised as a traditional Chilean drink, so without having a clue what it was, I tried it. Turns out it’s peach juice with little pieces of wheat at the bottom, and a big-pitted peach tossed in. Mmm. Then I found a vegetarian hot dog like thing on a street corner. No fake meat dog inside. Instead, mushrooms, tomato, and lots of avocado spread on top. It was oddly satisfying.
I bought a couple beers on the way back to sample from the comfort of my air BnB. Most of the beer/liquor stores were weird in the fact that you don’t go inside them, but rather look through this metal gate at their selection, and hand money through a little window in the gate. But thankfully it was cheap! Around a buck per beer. In fact, most things in Santiago so far have been pretty cheap. Not India cheap, but close. Fresh juice was a dollar, my veg dog was 2, touristy stuff is reasonable and lots of stuff like art museum or park entrances were free. I even got a sizable bag of matcha and instant coffee at a mini market for around 6 bucks. I heard that Chile is more expensive than most other South American countries, too.
On my walk back I saw the police approach a man who had set up a really nice home on the side of the road with a full mattress inside, a fabric roof, and walls even. Was he homeless, or homeful? I hope they let him keep his setup. I’ve seen some homeless folks bathing in big public fountains and I was tempted to join them. Their population isn’t as high as I’d expect. I encounter more homeless folks in Denver and Detroit than in Santiago.
Anyway, I wandered back to Alberto’s 12th floor apartment, cracked open a beer, and relaxed for the rest of the evening. Around 11 PM music started blasting from the rooftop next door and it lasted until sunrise. Thankfully I had some earplugs and a heaping of sleep deprivation, and slept like a baby.
So how do the streets of Santiago feel? They feel hopeful, accepting, free, warm, welcoming, and exciting. Or maybe that’s just me.
January 8th, 2023
The next day I had until 7 PM to continue exploring Santiago before taking an overnight bus heading south to Puerto Montt. So I headed towards the central market, where I wandered through an entire building solely of fresh fish of endless variety being washed off right there in front of you. Afterwards I wandered to Parque Forestal, which I had visited the day prior. I knew it would be a great place to relax, people watch, and start to write this travel blog. So that’s exactly what I did.
After journaling for a while, an older man with a long white beard named Jorg came up and sat next to me just as I was packing up to leave. I tried saying that I had to go, but he offered me a beer, so my curiousity for what this encounter might hold took over and I accepted it. I started to tuck it away in my backpack, since I thought it was illegal to drink in the park, but that wasn’t his intention in giving me the beer. So I cracked it open, and next thing you know he’s drinking it too. I had second thoughts about sharing it with him, but I thought it might be a nice way to introduce some foreign who-knows-what into to my immune system. It was frustrating not being able to understand the vast majority of what he was saying. But we still managed to connect over shoes, occupations (he was a carpenter) and music. Thanks Jorg.
Eventually I told him I had to go pee and sauntered back to my Air BnB. It was surprisingly hard to find a good looking authentic Chilean restaurant, so I settled for some empanadas from a boteleria (beer/wine shop) which once again was handed through the metal gate that blocks the entrance into the little shop. It was meat. She even asked me “no meat?” And I said, “Si, no meat. Soy vegetariano.” I don’t think either were legit empanadas either – one was like a cheese filled croissant, and the other was some meat and onions inside this flatbread-like thing. Ah, oh well. I knew this moment was coming, I just didn’t expect it to be so soon.
After that I picked up my backpack from the Air BnB and wished Alberto goodbye (thanks Alberto), then proceeded to wait for a half an hour for a bus that never came. It nearly caused me to miss the 12-hour overnight bus to Puerto Montt, but thankfully a taxi took me there, and I slid right in.
It felt relieving to be out of the big city. It seems that the more time I spend living in the wilderness, the less tolerance I have to be in big cities for a while. Not that I don’t find them enthralling when I’m in them. My cup just gets full pretty quick these days.
So I watched with welcoming eyes the landscape transition into less development and more agricultural areas. Endless mountains, many of which were volcanoes, revealed themselves around every next bend.
The seats reclined back more than most buses I’ve been on, but I only managed somewhere between 1 and 2 hours of real sleep.
January 9th, 2023
At least I was able to catch the full sunrise. The landscape had transitioned overnight from a mostly hot and arid environment to one that is moist, forested, and cool. As soon as I stepped off the bus I knew I made the right choice to come to Patagonia. It was just barely cool enough for a light jacket, with a decent breeze of the freshest of fresh air straight outta the Pacific.
People here have been nothing but friendly and helpful thus far. In confusion about where to go to deal with an issue with my upcoming ferry ticket, a man named Peter walked me 10 minutes directly to correct office. I guess he was going that way anyway, but still. He was from the Santiago area but moved to Puerto Montt after being stationed there in the Armada for a little while. Thanks Peter. Then, while waiting outside the office eating a cheese, chili, and hard-boiled egg sandwich (not the best, but it was protein), a young couple came up to me just to say that if I am waiting for the ferry, I am in the wrong spot. How thoughtful! Wow, when strangers go out of their way to help others, my hope for humanity glows brighter. Thanks Bea and Matéius. Coincidentally, we ended up riding on the same bus from Santiago to Puerto Montt, ship from there to Chaitén, and a day and a half later, the same bus down to Coyhaique! But, I am getting ahead of myself.
After the hard boiled huevos, I slept for half an hour on the benches outside the office, waiting for it to open. Ticket acquired, I had nothing to do but just keep waiting for the next thing. I forgot how much traveling – at least in a foreign country on a budget – is really just waiting around. So I went to a cafe to try to book a hostel for that night, with no success, as everything I saw in Chaitén was quite expensive. Like 40+ bucks per night. As I’m writing this, I have but a vague idea of where I’ll sleep tonight. It’s kinda exciting, kinda pre-exhausting knowing that it might be another long night tonight trying to find somewhere to sleep. If you know me at all, you probably know how much I love early bedtimes and sleep in general. Well, I manage to impress myself with how well I can adapt to zombie-traveler mode. I had some moments today of utter drainage and headachey blahh, but I’d bounce out if it when the journey progresses and I’m not just waiting, drifting in thought…
I wonder how you conjugate ver for the 3rd person plural.. oh that’s a nice cloud.. those people were speaking German.. should I avoid coffee before the ferry so I can sleep more.. is open shift still in the field?.. would I get in trouble if I set up my sleeping pad right here and slept.. why have I barely felt hunger this trip.. why is nobody else is wearing Patagonia down here….
Snap! I’m on the ferry for the next 10 or so hours to Chaitén. Shortly after finding my seat, a friendly older man from the Netherlands named Adrian came up to say hello, and that he saw me sleeping outside the ticket office. We conversed for a bit, and I ran into him again up on the deck where I learned that he has seen all the national parks in Utah and has explored a good bit of Colorado as well. He’s an economics professor back in Holland, and on sabbatical right now. Before he started the Chilean part of his vacation, he and his wife, Claudia, rode their bikes all the way from the Netherlands to the southern coast of Spain. Cool dude! He’s 65, but age is no barrier to connection.
The ferry ride was long and chilly. My seat was right near the doorway to the windy world outside, which is also the way to the woman’s bathroom. Every 30 seconds or so a chill would rush through my bones. All my layers weren’t good enough (since I originally packed for Peru & Bolivia, not chilly Chile). So my solution? Dance!
I went to the deck and where only a couple people had the tenacity to be brace the natural world, and had my own little silent disco. I went hard, twirling about to Big Thief, traversing the deck, people staring at me as they came and went. It was powerful. And it worked! By the end I was down to just a t-shirt and my blankey.
I chatted a few more times with Adrian and met his wife Claudia, saw a seal, a rainbow, and more never ending mountains. As our ferry was pulling into the dock and lowering the heavy metal thing that cars drive over to get out, they accidentally dropped it all the way down in the water. I found it rather humorous, but then Claudia informed me that not too long ago 200 people died because of a similar situation when a huge wave rolled in and sank the ship. Not so funny anymore. However, watching the trucks reverse off the ship and up a ways before they could turn around was quite the show.
Adrain invited me to tag along with him and his wife to the place they were staying that night called “Eco-camping Chaitén” and even offered me to use their extra tent. Well, I tend to be a “yes man” when traveling, so I gratefully accepted. By 11:45 I set up my bivvy, and slept in all my layers, plus of course Hankey (the name I just came up with for my Himalayan blankey that I take literally everywhere with me) as a test to see if I could stay warm enough throughout the night without a sleeping bag.
If you’re still reading at this point, thank you! By now I’m at my Workaway down in Patagonia and have accumulated many more stories I’m excited to share with you all. Stay tuned 🙂
Chao,
Hans
Words of Hans 