We left Santiago yesterday on a very comfortable bus to the port city of ValparaÃso, where I sit typing this over breakfast in our hostel. But we’ll be back to the capital a bit later this month or next. As a bustling metropolis of over 5 million people, there’s simply no way to see much of it in a few days. That said, we did our best, walking several kilometres each day to check out the urban downtown core, a few of the major museums, a bit of nightlife, and several excellent meals. The architecture is one of the highlights of the City, with fortified castles and crumbling 19th century mansions alongside art deco apartments, shiny skyscrapers, and everything in between.
We spent our first night in Barrio Brazil, a casual and quiet district east of the downtown centre. Though we had our doubts about the neighbourhood while hiking past numerous auto parts shops between Plaza Brazil and the Alameda, the Barrio proved to be worth the walk for the lovely park alone and the excellent La Casa Roja hostel. But in the interests of changing things up, we moved on to spend the next couple nights in the more artsy and upscale Barrio Lastarria area, with easier access to the nightlife of Barrio Bellavista and the sights of downtown.
We visited the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, which had an interesting mix of Chilean art from the last 100 years or so, as well as the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, which as the name implies contains a great collection of pre-Columbian artefacts from all over South America.
Though our itinerary is still blissfully uncertain, we will definitely need to be back in Santiago to catch our flight to Easter Island at the end of our trip, and we plan to give it another day or two to enjoy more of the city. We haven’t been shooting a ton of pictures, which as any working photographer will tell you, is it’s own kind of vacation, but here are some of my snapshots from the city.
Talk to you later.
Chris
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