The traffic is buzzing 16 floors below me on the downtown Santiago, Chile street. I have just awakened from a 4 hour nap and it’s nearly 7PM. I can just barely make out the outline of the Andes Mountains through the pollution haze. Howard was hoping for a clear day so that he could frame this concrete jungle with the snow covered mountain peaks but it looks like he will be disappointed.
Our plane trip here was long. All-in-all, when we reached our apartment, we had been awake 22 hours with a couple of short cat-naps on the plane. I would force myself to stay awake another 7 hours before collapsing in the bed. Howard is sturdier than me; he stayed up with a glass of Chilean wine for a couple hours more. Maybe it was more than one glass of wine…
We found our apartment on Vacation Rentals by Owner, our favorite website for vacation apartments (VRBO#353059). It is a modest, but perfectly adequate, apartment in a great location at a low price ($65/night). The owner, Marcello, has gone above and beyond the call of landlord duty and, after many e-mails discussing tour options, has engaged his brother, Gonzalo, for airport transportation duty and for 2 days of tours. Gonzalo is a really cute, young dentistry school student. We are going to enjoy his out-going and pleasant personality during our times together.
We are happy to have left behind the last days of hectic, stressful tax season. One story will tell it all: We finished up the last tax return on Sunday at noon; changed our voicemail message to “if you’re calling now you’re too late” (or something like that); locked up the office; and scrambled home to pack with a glass of champagne in hand. I fell asleep on the couch later that evening and when Howard tried to wake me up, I jumped to attention with television remote control in hand to “finish up the last tax return.” But I became increasingly upset that I could not scroll down on the TV menu to the next tax client. Of course I was “sleep working” (a similar aflixion to sleep walking) and it took a good bit of not-so-patient coaxing from Howard to finally convince me that all returns had been dealt with and it was time to stop the nonsense and get to bed. The next morning I told him that he could have at least seen a little humor in the situation but even then it was too close for him to be objective.
First impressions of Santiago: hair-raising traffic (I think maybe the worst we’ve ever seen in our travels); gobs of busses of every size and shape (largely contributing to the traffic mess); graffiti, both incredibly beautiful art and senseless craziness, on every building including the churches; herds of humanity; and not especially attractive buildings. We were out on the street trying to get our internal clocks reset at about 9AM. We could not find one cafe for a much-needed shot of caffeine! In fact when we went to the grocery store later to stock up on coffee for tomorrow morning we could only find instant coffee! Eagle-eye Howard noticed that every can of coffee that looked like ground coffee was just instant coffee disguised as real coffee. Later we took a close look at the ground, decaffeinated coffee at the apartment we saw that it had been purchased at TJ Max in the USA!
We walked around the local neighborhood for a couple of hours trying to find something more interesting than graffiti and eventually located a pastry shop. The coffee they served came from a Nescafe push-button machine (like the ones you can buy for personal use) but it sure tasted good. As we were sitting at the table soaking in the caffeine someone thrust a “begging can” at me and without looking at the beggar I shook my finger indicating “no.” Quickly after that I saw the “nuisance,” a adolescent boy with disabilities and clearly suffering from a hard life on the street. My uncaring behavior seemed even worse in camparision to a lady with a young child who purchased a sandwich and drink for the boy; lovingly seated him; and set up his breakfast so he could eat with dignity. I was ashamed of myself…
We decided to walk to a well-known area of shops and restaurants and find a place for lunch. We had refused the 3rd meal (breakfast) on the plane because it just seemed like we’d had too much airplane food already. So we were hungry and by the time we’d walked there (I’d say at least a couple of miles) we were ready to sit down and have a Pisco Sour–the national drink, it seems. There are lots of hawkers trying to draw you into their restaurants. It’s nearly impossible to glance at a posted menu without being strong-armed into sitting down. So you have to use your peripheral vision to try to see the offerings as you walk without hesitation straight ahead. We stopped at a menu board at a restaurant called “Vivalavida” for a quick glance and a very nice young woman very casually approached us and ask if she could tell us about the menu in English. We kind of helped each other translating the menu offerings.
She was so nice; the menu looked delicious; the garden in the back off the street looked inviting; and they had Pisco Sours.
What more could we ask for?!
The Pisco Sours were great! They served a plate of sliced baguette and a delicious tomato salsa–nice and spicy and vinegary. First course for Howard was a tomato stuffed with corn and spicy mayonnaise. I had pumpkin and carrot soup. Our main course was Reinete (a local fish) gratin with a very tasty rice. Dessert was Masedonia, a local fresh fruit dessert: strawberries, kiwi and banana in simple syrup. It was refreshing and delicious. We also enjoyed a Chilean Sauvignon blanc wine. It really was a nice lunch with just the relaxing atmosphere we needed. The total cost was about $20.
I could not face the long walk back and negotiating the metro did not excite me so we grabbed a taxi and took another hair-raising trip back the apartment.