Easter Island
We were using Santiago as a jumping-off point to visit Easter Island. The only way to get to Easter Island was through Santiago.
Read MoreOvernight in Santiago
We flew out of Panama's Tocumen International Airport and, about six hours later, landed at Chile's Comodoro Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport.
We got our bags and cleared customs with no hassles, then picked up our free shuttle from the fantastic airport transit service TransVIP, who took us to the airport-adjacent Hilton Garden Inn.
We were only spending one night in Santiago before we returned to the airport immediately the next day for our flight to Easter Island.
A Return to Santiago
When we returned from Easter Island, we checked into Hostal Rio Amazonas, a very nice hostel (our first of the trip) in downtown Santiago. We only had one day to explore the city, but we packed a lot into that day.
It was raining when we woke up, so we had breakfast at hostel and waited out the rain working on some schoolwork. But homework is hungry work, so after a few hours we started thinking about food. By then it had stopped raining, so we headed out to get some lunch.
As we explored, we found that we really liked Santiago. It's walking and biking friendly, has a good amount of parks and green space, and offers some interesting sights and sounds. It helped that we were in a university and museum district, so the area felt pretty vibrant. But there was plenty of traffic, too, and people weren't afraid to use their horns.
We strolled around a part of town that felt a little like downtown Los Angeles. We had a hard time finding an open restaurant, which seemed strange for a Friday afternoon. We ended up eating at Big Ben of Santiago, a lunch counter of sorts that displayed their pastries and dishes in street-front windows.
They also had a comedor (dining room) down a set of steps. The big dish in Chile is the empañada pino, a mix of ground beef, onions, raisins, hard-boiled egg, and black olives, so we had to try one. We also ordered a hamburgesa completa, a hamburger with a lot of toppings, which was messy to eat but quite tasty.
A Missed Walking Tour
From lunch we walked over to the Museo de Bellas Artes to catch Wally's 3:00 walking tour (now re-branded as Tours4Tips). 3:00 came and went, then 3:15, but there was no sign of Wally.
Another tourist, a nice gent from Melbourne was also waiting for the tour. We chatted with this fellow a bit about what to see and do in Melbourne, then we decided to give up.
We were a little sad that Wally was a no-show, until we turned the corner and realized that we had been at the back of the museum (though it looked a lot like a front), and Wally probably started his tours on the other side. Whoops.
Funicular Above the City
So instead of spending three hours with Wally, we meandered up Pio Nono (that's a street) toward the National Zoo and Cerro San Cristóbal.
We spent 7,000 pesos to take the 45-degree Funicular of Santiago up to the top of Cerro San Cristóbal — 300 meters above Santiago — and the Sanctuary of the Immaculate Conception.
The ride took ten minutes, and at the top offered great views of Santiago and the Andes range in the distance.
The Sanctuary of the Immaculate Conception is an open-air cathedral, dominated by a 22-meter tall statue of the Virgin Mary at the peak of the hill. At the base of the statue, there's a small chapel where Pope John Paul II blessed the city in 1987.
We got some ice cream, browsed the many shops at the top of the mountain, then rode the funicular back down and walked back toward the hostel. Along the way we took in the sights and kept an eye out for a place to eat dinner. The street leading back to the hostel was thick with bars, and people were sitting outside, sharing liter bottles of beer poured into glasses. It seemed very pleasant.
The Best Pizza in the World
The kids were starting to get weary of trying new foods, so when we saw Bella Italia, a pizza joint on Avenida Libertador Bernardo O'Higgins (the greatest street name ever), right around the corner from the hostel, they enthusiastically voted for pizza for dinner.
The parents gave in, and we're glad we did — the pizza here was fantastic. Although it's now been closed for many years, you can still read our TripAdvisor review.
So despite missing the walking tour, we managed to take in some good sights in a short amount of time. We headed back to the hostel and lounged in the common area for awhile until it was time for bed. We wished that we had a few more days in Santiago, but we had a flight to Sydney in the morning — and on that flight we'd cross the International Date Line.
Recounts the events of August 31, 2014 — Day 12 and September 5, 2014 — Day 17 of continuous travel.
► Continue the Journey ► Easter Island
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Header Image: Statue of the Virgin Mary atop Cerro San Cristóbal. All images from the author's collection.