The best laid plans… seems that many of Santiago’s best museums close on a Monday, but that doesn’t stop theBunch!
Andrew and I started the day with a run in the dark. Sunrise is 8:05am due to daylight saving that doesn’t finish until May! It’s about the same latitude as Sydney, so it shows what a difference timezone placement makes! It was about 9 degrees, so everyone was rugged up on their way to work… ugh! We ran along the Rio Mapocho – a trickle of a river that was turned into a canal many years ago. It makes the Brisbane River look majestic!
We were adopted by a stray dog, who seemed intent on showing us the way. He’d sit while we waited for the green man, show us the best route, and stuck by us for about 5km until we turned around. We nicknamed him ‘Verde’ (green) in honour of his commitment to the green man. My kind of dog 🙂
The Plaza de Armas is the main square in the city, established in 1541. It’s surrounded by buildings that feature architecture from both the colonial past and republican history.
Our priority is the Museum of Memory and Human Rights. We navigated the Metro (English is virtually non-existent here!) and payment, and made our way to the Western end of town… only to find that the museum was closed. Hopefully we’ll make it back…
One of the top tourist spots in Santiago is the Cerro San Cristobal, with views across the city. It shows the deep connection to the Catholic faith in the region.
We got the Funicular, a cable-car railway to the top – a 500m trip that was opened in 1925.
The ‘Parquemet’ the largest urban park in Latin Merida (think Mt Coot-tha in the city ++). And now I have a confession to make… what looked like a short walking path might have been a trail, which might have been ridiculously dusty and rugged, and might have been really poorly signed. We might have smelled a bushfire along the way.
OK, so it was 4km of the dodgiest trail that we’ve seen on this holiday, and we’re lucky to have made it out in one piece. It’s going on the ‘memorable’ list. It also elevated today to the biggest walking day of the whole trip. Oops.
OK, so it was 4km of the dodgiest trail that we’ve seen on this holiday, and we’re lucky to have made it out in one piece. It’s going on the ‘memorable’ list. It also elevated today to the biggest walking day of the whole trip. Oops.
Last stop, the Sky Costanera, a viewing platform on the tallest building in South America. 62 stories up, and an open air roof – clearly rain isn’t an issue here! I was relieved to see that that promised external glass lifts did not exist – that may have been a bridge too far!
Enough for today… some more immersion in the Lastarria culture, dinner, and off to bed. We’re off to the Chilean coast in the morning, so it’s another big day!
Love M & theBunch x
Love M & theBunch x
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