Chile Part 2 - Loving Chile

Where to begin? It is hard to describe all the new and different ways of doing things that make overseas travel interesting.

The first obvious difference encountered in our travels is the language ...Spanish (or Castellano as it is known here to differentiate it from the word describing Spanish people). We love the language and have enjoyed hearing the language and speaking it. But we have to learn more because we are not sure exactly what we are ordering every single time we´re out to dinner. On the other hand, we did understand that one of the kitchen staff at a hotel in Santiago adopted us by greeting us as her children when taking our order for breakfast.

The main highlight of Chile is that the Chilean people are very welcoming, helpful and friendly. This goes a long way toward making Chile a fantastic destination in addition to its spectacular scenery in the mountainous areas, the vineyards, the Andes, the forests.



We spent about ten days in Chile. A few days were spent exploring Santiago. A lovely old city, although crumbling in parts, it is very cosmopolitan. We learnt more about indigenous history at the excellent precolumbian museum of indigenous art, and viewed the work of local artists at the Museum of Fine Arts (Museo de Bellas Artes; which is housed in a very elegant old building currently undergoing renovatin but which isn´t very big). Not too much time was spent in the museums or galleries. We found Santiago a great city just to loose yourself in a crowd, people watch and visit parks. A lot of lovely old colonial buildings are overshadowed by the skyscrapers that tower over them (some are really ugly 70s-style cement monoliths). We enjoyed looking through the courtyards of the imposing presidential palace and watching a changing of the guard at the palace. They are big on security here. Armed Carbinieri are on every street corner and in every park. They seem to be very friendly. Mostly, they seem to help the people of Santiago with street directions. We just asked to a take a photo with one of them.



Santiago, given its cosmopolitan nature, hasn´t yet discovered a cafe culture as we have done in Australia. There are a lot of small eateries, patisseries, small bars, and loads of restaurants but none are dedicated to serving excellent, expresso style coffee. Unbelievably, Nescafe dried instant coffee has a tight grip on the market here and Chileans love it. It is often the default coffee served when out and about. Only a couple of expresso-style bars called ´Haiti´ have recently been opened in Santiago but these are a novelty and have a Pacific theme underlying the use of fresh coffee beans. Attractive women in short black maid-style dresses bring you the coffee straight from the barrista and to you at a bar where you stand to drink the coffee. The cafes are popular with men but Santiago women are slowly turning up in increasing numbers. There are a few things we think they need to change about this set up to market good, fresh coffee to the general public. The coffee, at least, was good in Haiti.