Tuesday 25th and Wednesday 26th March
I actually don’t know where to start – we have done and seen so much in the short time since we arrived, and I am already enamoured with this amazing continent!
But when you don’t know where to start, the logical thing is to start at the very beginning (it’s a very good place to start 😉 🎶) , so that’s what I will do.
Tuesday was a VERY long day, not only because it included a 13-hour flight, but also because we crossed numerous time zones, including the international date line, meaning we landed in Santiago two hours before we took off from Sydney! Needless to say, this was not good on the body clock and even when writing this a few days later, we are all still a bit jet lagged.
I’ve learned that the best way to minimise the impact of the time zone changes is the combined approach of: 1. exercising on arrival and 2. staying awake till an acceptable bedtime in the new zone.
We definitely accomplished the first part, walking more than 10,000 steps once we arrived at our hotel in central Santiago. Going to sleep at a ‘normal’ time was a little more challenging, but we did manage to stay awake till about 7pm… well at least some of us did 😉
Our walk around Santiago was actually fabulous, despite no real plan of where we were heading. We started with a visit to Burger King to feed Dave something we knew he would eat, before walking towards the central markets in the Santa Lucia area of the city, stopping at the Catedral Metropolitana de Santiago to admire the neo-classical architecture, painted ceilings and interesting underground crypts.
Once we reached the market, as luck would have it, I immediately spotted the bustling Emporio Zunino. As usual, following a crowd was a positive experience and it turns out this place is very well-known for empanadas, having served them with the same recipe since 1930! I didn’t know that at the time we walked in, nor did I realise that not all empanada’s are bite size, as we had experienced in other parts of the world. I ordered (in struggling Spanish), two cheese and four meat (carne) pastries to ‘comida para llevar’ (takeaway) and when we opened the parcel at the standing tables, realised that each one was a large meal in itself! We managed to share one of each variety between Will, Emma and I, but re-wrapped the other four, still fresh and warm from the oven! Interestingly in Chile a beef empanada is traditionally filled with minced meat and onion, plus boiled egg and a single (not pitted) black olive. They were hot and flavoursome, and it was wonderful to stand and eat them alongside the decent-sized local crowd (especially given it was after 2pm), who were doing likewise.
The Mercado Central de Santiago includes a large undercover area for seafood. Many of the stall holders were washing down, having finished sales for the day, but the numerous restaurants selling local seafood (cooked to order) were still keen to have our patronage, encouraging us to come into their stalls to eat. They also all seemed quite keen on looking at Emma, whose blond hair stood out in the crowd and was looking her usual gorgeous self, despite having been mostly awake for well over 24 hours! We walked through quite quickly, to avoid their constant requests for our business, plus the slightly acrid smell of seafood after a day on display!
Once outside we decided to head towards the Metropolitano Parque, the largest park in Santiago which sits upon San Cristobel hill, but not before offloading our spare empanadas to a man who looked like he could do with a warm nourishing meal. His smile as he opened the string-tied brown paper package Dave handed him made me feel better about over-ordering, although he seemed a little bit perplexed by the gift!
After a 20-minute tiring walk in the sunshine (it was now about 28c) we arrived at the entrance to the park. The attraction here was the funicular which took us to the top of the Summit of Cerro San Cristóbal. Once at the peak, we were treated to a spectacular view of the expanse of Santiago city where we then walked to the gondola to ride down the other side of the hill. Such fun!
An Uber from the base of the cable car back to the hotel was easy and cheap and we agreed to meet an hour later at 6pm in the hotel foyer to find some dinner. Unfortunately, exhaustion got the better of all of us, and we opted for take away instead, which Will and Emma picked up while Dave and I struggled to stay awake in our room. We ate it quickly, showered and fell into a deep sleep at around 7pm.
When I woke in the dark, I assumed it must be nearly morning, and was shocked to see it was only 11pm! From then until the alarm went off at 5:30am I fell in and out of sleep, tossing and turning and trying to convince my mind that it was indeed night-time!
Of course, when the alarm sounded, I had finally fallen into a proper slumber, and it took all of my powers (and the knowledge of an impending 9am flight) to drag myself out of bed.
The hotel had arranged a car to take us back to Santiago Airport which was reasonably priced at about $40 for the 25-minute drive, although not as cheap as the $25 Uber we had used to get from the airport to the hotel on Tuesday. An easy check in, a McDonalds (ahem) breakfast for us all and we boarded, close to on-time, not long after 8am.
As the plane took off from Santiago, even through what seems to be constant smog, we were treated to amazing views of the city and the towering Andes mountains in the background. The flight basically traces the line of the Andes, (keeping west of the Andes and breaching Argentinian airspace) as it heads south towards Punta Arenas.
About halfway through the 3.5 hour (3hr 28 minute to be accurate, but more on that in a future blog post), we began to fly over the awe-inspiring region of Patagonia. The scenery at this point is simply mind-blowing: immense lakes with massive glaciers flowing into them; impressive peaks; and huge chunks of icebergs floating in the lakes. I am prone for some reason to become emotional on aeroplanes (especially if watching sad movies!) but the tears this time flowed from my sheer amazement of the views below, and the wonderful feeling of being totally insignificant within the size and beauty of nature.
As I write this, just after 8am on Thursday I can hear and smell bacon sizzling, thanks to Will and Emma cooking us all breakfast.
We are heading off today in the hire car to explore the area south of Punta Arenas including Bulnes Fort, then tomorrow will travel, again by car, across to Tierra del Fuego to see, among other things, Magellan Penguins. Will blog again in a few days to let you know how that all goes!
In the meantime, Emma recently bought Will a Go-Pro, and this is their summary of yesterday, which was edited from the recordings.