One Week in Santiago

7 days, 6 siestas, 5 empanadas, 4 salsa nights, 3 hostels, 2 motorbikes and 1 long list of things to do sums up our time in Santiago de Chile.

After a tiring overnight plane trip, we arrived in Santiago feeling pretty relaxed. Everything was fairly easy to manage at the airport, and our confidence at attempting Spanish had grown significantly since our last trip to South America. El Patio Suizo (a Swiss run B&B) was lovely – slightly quirky with creaking floorboards and oddly shaped rooms, but characterful in a positive way. We had a look around the area (Providencia is full of slightly crumbling, gracious houses reminiscent of La Habana), found our way to the supermercado, parque, and sussed out the restaurants and bars for later in the evening. We ended up going to a very cool place, obviously frequented by young Chilenos, and with the help of a lovely waitress, worked out where the best salsa bar was for the proceeding nights!

We struggled to wake up the next morning after a sleepless night in Provedencia. This well to do, quiet neighbourhood, makes up for its daytime placidity with fast, loud cars, and chattering locals continuously keeping the street awake from midnight until 4am at which stage we finally relented to the heat and opened our door to the noise. This, combined with 5 hours of afternoon siesta and an unchanged body clock meant that we were bleary eyed at 9am.

In much need of some exercise, we decided to walk up the dominant hill in Santiago – Cerro San Cristobel. We walked through Providencia, Centro Santiago, and Barrio Bella Vista, then hiked up the hill to take in the view that the Virgin Mary gets at the top. Midday arrived and we hit 30+ degrees celcius, so we ate a packed lunch in the shade at the bottom of the hill and watched ninos coerce their parents into buying them stuffed toys and candy floss. We located La Maestra Vida, the salsa bar that had been recommended to us. Pio Nono in Bella Vista was certainly the place to go at night.

After a short (well shorter than yesterday) nap, we found a new hostel for the next five nights – Castillo Surfista Santiago – still in Providencia. In an effort to cut down the spending and reduce our fat content, we ate salad and bread for our NZ dinner, knowing that our Chilean dinner would not come until about 10 or 11pm. We set out for Bella Vista finding a couple of small restaurant/bars to grab a drink and tapas at before heading to La Maestra Vida for a night of salsa dancing!

On Monday we kicked off the morning with the intention to sort out much of our paperwork for buying a bike in Chile, and to check out the bikes on offer in Santiago. We fumbled our way through a few conversations, forms, and a fairly long wait in the Servicio Impuestos only to be told we were in the wrong office. We decided to tackle the metro rather than subject ourselves to the increasing heat of the day and managed to get this sorted at the second office. We thought we were doing pretty well until they told us it would take 6 weeks for the RUT card to be made, which would allow us to buy bikes and cross the border into Argentina legally. A slight hitch, but the plan carries on nonetheless.

After takeaway empanadas, we started scouring Avenida Lira for possible bikes, gear and anything else we might need. Lots of options and lots to think about! A quiet afternoon relaxing under the grape vine (and sleeping on and off in the hammock) in lieu of a siesta, fresh bread, tomatoes and cheese for dinner, then off to a salsa class at Havana Salsa in Bella Vista. Wow, the instructors were amazing! Fluid, energetic, young, and mesmerising. The moves were often not difficult, but that typically Latino sway of the hips was so natural for both men and women – this has become goal number one for the trip – to find the elusive “La Timba” in me!

My first truly “abroard” birthday (Australia doesn’t count) also happened this week. We began by moving into a new hostel called Castillo Surfista Hostel, run by an ex-pat Californian surfer. Strange since we are several hours away from the sea in Santiago…? Still, the hostel is lovely and very Spanish looking, and the best part is that it is on a quiet street and we are at the back of the house. No more sleepless nights! After dumping all our gear in the morning, we set off for another hill to climb, Cerro Santa Lucia, the oldest part of Santiago. There, we wandered sedately through the gardens and took in the view of the dusty city, then headed for helado at a wonderful icecream shop called Emporio La Rosa – reminiscent of a 1950s milk bar. Feeling satisfied, we carried on to Plaza de Armas and sat for some time in the oasis of the cathedral.

When we returned to the hostel, Jono appeared with a collection of birthday fare – empenadas, beer, and BIRTHDAY CAKE! We sat in the shade a the front of the hostel and I decided that this was probably one of my best birthdays ever! Later in the evening we wandered down the road to a little Italian restaurant. It was an absolute delight, from the buiding itself, to the camerero, to the food and wine. I was in heaven!

The latter part of the week was fairly well devoted to making some decisions on motorbikes. We still have a lot of questions, and it seems the only way to answer them is to have a go and see what happens. Our main concern (other than actually riding bikes) is that we don’t know if we can sell them (legally) in a country other than Chile. Current options are “losing” it in Central America, having it “stolen”, or selling it illegally in a country that we don’t plan to return to. There might have to be a few fabrications along the way.

After three hours of searching on Calle Lira we were feeling a little despondent. All was not lost though, as we returned to Havana Salsa for our second lesson which we thoroughly enjoyed. A glass of red wine, a game of Monopoly Deal, and some street food, encouraged us to keep working on the motorbike dream... a dream which today has resulted in the request of two little blue Honda CGL PRO 125cc motorbikes, new riding gear, and other miscellaneous bits we think we'll need. Looks like it's actually going to happen!