Outing to Farellones

Yesterday I drove to the city of Farellones (location). This city, which is only 35km from Santiago, is located at an elevation of 8500ft. When compared to Santiago's 1500ft elevation, the sheer angle of the drive upwards through the Andes can be visualized. The views were breathtaking:

The Obama Issue of The Clinic

For all the Spanish speakers, click here for 'The Clinic' issue that I wrote about a few days ago. A large copy of the cover is here.

Allende & Pinochet

Suprisingly, two of the most famous leaders of Chile in recent memory are barely mentioned anywhere around the capitol. The only mention of Salvador Allende that I came across was a statue in front of Palacio de La Moneda in the Plaza de La Constitución:




The only mention of Augusto Pinochet that I found, other than a photo essay about protests against his government in the National Archives, was this plaque that was mounted on the wall at the National History Museum:

Palacio de La Moneda

I went to the Palacio de La Moneda about 4 times before I successfully got inside. This place is supposed to be open daily from 10AM to 6PM, however, when you get there the security guards (there are 100's of them) say that you have to come back at some random time. Due to the complications regarding getting inside, there must have been something pretty great there. See pictures of what I found below.

The front of the Palace:




Pictures from the courtyard:

Stoplight Entertainment

These guys run out in front of stopped traffic and perform for about 30 seconds and then come looking to get paid by the stopped drivers. They seem to do a brisk business as people generally pay them and they are scattered all over the city. There are many of these guys standing in front of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes practicing and maybe training. In the background of this picture is an elevated section of the Blue Metro line (location).

Interesting Storefront

This store, Mariajosé Piimpin, is located in Valparaiso (location).

Unidad de Fomento

The Unidad de Formento (UF), or Indexed Unit of Account, is a financial mechanism that is used in Chile to keep the cost of homes and cars in line with inflation. Today, the value of 1 UF is $21,304.82 CLP, so the lowest cost unit in the building pictured is $20,239,579.00 CLP (about US$32,500 on 1/26/09).

Chilean Satire about Obama

Yesterday, I was walking down the street and came across a newsstand selling the latest issue of 'The Clinic' newspaper (wiki) which had a picture of Obama on the cover. The actual issue is not online yet, but it should show up sometime soon. This is supposed to be a satirical paper, but I could see how, if published in the USA, would be perceived as quite offensive:



Another publication called Despierta Chile published an article called 'The Secret History of Obama'.

Here is a picture of a Chilean newsstand. They do not sell magazines in book stores or supermarkets around here, only at these newsstands that are scattered throughout the city, usually two or three per block:

Pictures from Valparaiso

Here are a few shots from Valparaiso, I will add more later:

More General Thoughts about Santiago

As I have been here for more than two weeks I have noticed a few other interesting things:

• Cell Phones work on the Metro. This is true not just at the stops but while the train is in motion between stations. Having a conversation is made possible with the low amount of noise generated by the rubber wheels.
• Valparaiso was not a nice city. Yesterday, I drove here and was quite surprised by the lack of food options, lack of parking, overall filthiness and that the shoreline is basically a port. The cool thing about the city is that it is built on the side of a mountain, so driving around was quite interesting on the steep, banking turns.
• Chilean people do not like Air Conditioning. I asked someone over here why even some restaurants are not cooled and it turns out that Chileans think that Air Conditioning makes them sick.
  

¡Perro Caliente!

Hot Dogs are fairly popular in Chile. The most blatant perro caliente (spanish for hotdog) reseller is an establishment aptly named 'Doggis':

Motorcycles in Departrment Stores

Here are some pictures of motorcycles forsale in a department store. They are going for about 1 million CLP up to about 1.8 million CLP.

September 11th (1973)

I was walking down the street in Providencia the other day and I came across a street called Avenue 11 De Septiembre and I thought it was odd that the Chileans would rename a prominent street after an event in the USA. Upon further inspection though, it turns out that September 11th, 1973 was the day that Augusto Pinochet lead the coup d'état against the socialist government of Salvador Allende. Needless to say, many people died as a result of this action, so renaming this street was probably in order.

Petty Theft in Santiago

Even though Santiago is fairly safe for people, petty theft against cars in Santiago is rampant. Here is an example of what ends up happening to them.


Missing antenna:




Missing hood decal:




Since there are people roaming around in the streets at all hours your car is never really safe. I am going to be renting a parking permit for the underground lot under my apartment building for $35.000CLP, which is quite reasonable since overnight parking in a lot that is a 10 minute walk away costs $6800CLP/night.

The Apartment Building

This is the outside of the apartment building:

Chilean Department Stores

The department stores here literally sell everything. The stores called Paris and Falabella had a wide variety of motorcycles available for sale inside the local mall. Really, it is quite interesting that someone would buy a 250cc motorcycle from inside a mall...

Pictures from the Santiago Metro

The Santiago Metro (official site) has three interesting features that distinguish it from other Metro's that I have been on:

• The train cars roll on rubber wheels.
• The 8 to 10 cars are linked together as one, you can walk from front to back through one continuous, articulated cavern.
• It is relatively quiet, the steel clanking of a traditional subway is missing.
  

This interesting looking fan was installed in some of the stations. Periodically, a spray of water comes out of some nozzles mounted to fan's metal housing.




Here is a side view from the train. The picture did not come out so well, I will try to get another one over the next few days. Notice the rubber wheels.

My Current Location

Here are my coordinates: S33°26.0187', W070°38.4861'

General Thoughts about Santiago

Hola, Santiago is a nice city. For the last week I have been walking around all over the place and have found the people to be friendly and the area to be relatively safe. Here are a few random thoughts:

• Almost no one speaks english here fluently and the people who do speak english do so at a very basic level.
• There are few chain restaurants around here, most of the restaurants here are unique. In the central part of Santiago's Downtown I only saw one Burger King and one KFC, this place has not been spoiled by fast food.
  
• The seasons are reversed here, summer in the southern hemisphere is during our winter. January and February are the summer vacation months.
• The traffic in the city is light, even during peak hours there is not much congestion on the roads.
• Public transportation here is excellent. The Metro (Metro de Santiago) goes almost everywhere of interest. Here is a current map. The bus system also uses the same RFID cards and you can connect directly to a bus at the last terminal on the Metro.
  
• To have dinner in a restaurant costs between $8 to $16 for a plate of food, no more than this and no less.
• Food quality is ok, Santiago is not the place if you travel exclusively for food. So far the best restaurant I have been to is called El Otro Sitio, they specialize in Peruvian fare.
• Chilean people like beer, particular the 40oz is quite popular, even in bars.
• Credit cards are not popular here, everyone uses Debit cards. The first day I was here, prior to getting some Chilean Pesos, I spent about 10 minutes trying to pay for some water and other essential goods at the grocery store.
• For whatever reason, cold water is not served in restaurants, they keep trying to give you a glass with ice in it.
  
• Cola (CocaCola and Pepsi) is predominantly sold here in glass bottles, just like they used to sell in America 25 years ago. Only a handfull of restaurants have soda fountains, they just bring out the bottles. Cans are available but they are really small.
• There are many large buildings being built in the denser population areas, however, even in downtown, there are lots of old buildings that dont excede two or three stories.
• There is decorative graffiti everywhere, I will post some pictures later.
  
• Lots of young people here.

If I can think of anything else interesting about this place I will post later...

The Santiago Metro

The Santiago Metro (official site) has three interesting features that distinguish it from other Metro's that I have been on:

• The train cars roll on rubber wheels.
• The 8 to 10 cars are linked together as one, you can walk from front to back through one continuous, articulated cavern.
• It is relatively quiet, the steel clanking of a traditional subway is missing.
  

This interesting looking fan was installed in some of the stations. Periodically, a spray of water comes out of some nozzles mounted to fan's metal housing.




Here is a side view from the train. The picture did not come out so well, I will try to get another one over the next few days. Notice the rubber wheels.

Pictures from Apartment

I am staying in the Simply Chile Apartments in the Bella Vista district of Santiago. So far it has been nice, the food is OK. It is quite warm here, it was about 85 degrees today and there is lots of shade throughout the city.

Here are some pictures from the window of the apartment, I will take some from the roof later, I need to recharge the camera's battery. The mountain in the background is Cerro San Cristóbal.

Hola from Santiago de Chile

I will post some pictures here tonight. Spent most of the day yesterday trying to find a place to exchange some money, I should have brought my ATM card.