Thursday 23rd March 2017
Santiago – City Tour
Collected by our new guide, Haimi. Driven around the city to get our
bearings. Nice city, again quite clean
and lots of trees and parks within. Usual
thing with the posh areas being on slight hills with a breeze, and the poorer
(but more interesting areas) in the dips (where the diseases were more
rife). Again lots of graffiti, some of
which was really clever. Loads of street
dogs around, but the locals feed and water them and they are actually quite
friendly. They are also ‘street wise’
and wait by the traffic lights until the pedestrian signs go green! The Chilean police here have the locals
respect and are not considered corrupt (a nice change in S. America). Reason is
that they are not well paid, but do have health cover, children’s education, their
own hospital, other benefits etc which means they want to keep their jobs and
have pride in their uniforms (women officers have the same colour lipstick to
wear!). Loads of police on horseback, so
of course, Roberto had his photo taken with one. 
Bit of a poignant moment when we were
hearing of a British policeman stabbed at Westminster during a terrorist attack
last night. When I tried to get a
picture with a constable, he wasn’t so cooperative until I realised that he was
on duty for the imminent ‘changing of the guard’, which was completely
unexpected to all of us including the guide. An impromptu display then took
place in front of the Presidential Palace (which has been bombed by Pinochet in
the coup, and subject of various earthquakes, but still standing!). Slightly more casual than the UK version, but
nevertheless a good band who covered some more relaxed numbers for the
tourists.
Onto a massive indoor fish market, with an upstairs
restaurant where we were treated to a soused fish starters, sea bass and
chips/rice/salad, fresh fruit salad, washed down with a pisco sour and dry
white Chilean wine. Entertainment also
arrived with a type of Mariachi band who were actually quite good. Susan must have had a few extra Pisco sours
as she jumped up and had a dance with the lead singer!
The hill overlooking Santiago was closed for some reason,
but we drove half-way up and took some tourist photos of the city – quite misty
due to the poor air quality caused by being in a dip between the mountain
ranges. One of the glaciers in the
distance looked like a cloud, with the base of the mountain obscured by
mist. Odd. 
Back to a decent hotel with finally some wifi we could rely
on to sort out the blog and photos.
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