Thanksgiving In Santiago

Traveling from the coast to Santiago is a quick bus ride, not more than an hour and a half, during which the outside temperature goes up by twenty degrees Fahrenheit. Welcome to Spring!

A friend of Lea’s from Chile (Hi, Alex!) assured us that once we got to Santiago, it would be just like Atlanta. Our first hour in the city gave us cause to doubt that assertion. Around the bus stop it was loud, crowded, dirty, and there wasn’t a single functioning ATM within twenty minutes walking distance. We discovered this while lugging around a combined 45kg of baggage on our backs and shoulders. Dispirited and short on rent money, we flagged down a taxi to the apartment we’d booked for the next two weeks.

Things got better.

And Alex was right. Once you get away from Central Station and make it to the other parts of town, Santiago is very much like any modern city in the U.S. and nicer than quite a few. It’s got more American-style shopping malls per square mile than any city I’ve ever seen. They love malls in Santiago, and they’re as full of American stores and restaurants as they are of Chilean equivalents. They also – and this was important – have theaters that show movies in English.

There are several things we wanted from Santiago. Thanksgiving Dinner was a high priority since we missed it last year (we were in Israel’s Negev Desert). We also wanted to stop moving, unpack, and live like humans in an apartment for a couple of weeks, not backpackers in a hostel. I needed a check-in with a neurologist (my doctor in Atlanta gave me a referral), I wanted to watch a movie in a theater instead of a bus (Bohemian Rhapsody was still showing and it was fantastic), and Lea and I both wanted Taco Bell.

My god, y’all. Taco Bell. Lea and I cringe every time we see a McDonald’s, and the only times on this trip that we’ve dipped into American chain food were starvation stops at Domino’s Pizza in Quito and Lima. (Fun fact: Domino’s is better in South America than in the U.S. It’s a sit-down restaurant and they go easier on the sauce.) But at some point after moving to Atlanta and enjoying its wide variety of Mexican cuisine I came to the conclusion that the appropriate scientific unit for measuring “happiness” is the Taco.

Imagine our horror once Lea and I realized that South America is almost completely bereft of tacos! The countries we’ve traveled in so far seem to actively scorn Mexican food and any time they attempt it they get it wrong. So picture my delight when I did a “what the hell” search on Google and discovered that Santiago has Taco Bell. It quickly became a priority.

We spotted one on our way to climbing a mountain. (More on that in a bit.) Once we came down the mountain we went straight there, hoping against hope that it was close to what we were used to back home. Dear readers, the menu was a little smaller than in the States but the food was exactly the same. They even had shredded cheese, something completely missing in every grocery store on this continent. (And to be clear, the stores don’t even sell cheese hard enough for you to shred yourself.)

We ordered more food than we normally would have, then went back and ordered seconds. Imagine the feast at the end of Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle; Lea and I had the Taco Bell equivalent.

I think the main problem that Santiago has presented for me is that it’s so much like a city in the U.S. that it’s made me achingly homesick for the real thing. I don’t miss having a job and being mistreated by horrible customers (by which I mean all customers) but I do miss a lot of other things: my friends, my cat, my stuff, a real kitchen, and generally understanding what’s going on around me most of the time.

That’s not a good mindset to be in, since I’m not going to have any of that back for six more months. So, given the (American) holiday that was celebrated this week, here is a list of things in my life right now that I’m thankful for:

I’m thankful that my loving wife, Lea, called me up at work last year and asked how I felt about quitting my job and heading to South America. That’s not how the idea started, mind you – we’d planned to do this crazy thing years ago – but that’s how it got put back on the table. I’m thankful to be able to spend so much time with her, facing the world together and following our dreams.

I’m thankful for the lovely folks at the Black Rock Pub and their All-You-Can-Eat Thanksgiving Buffet. The proprietors of that fine establishment are Australian, but they cater to all sorts and draw a good crowd of expats for Turkey Slaughter Day. They even had American football on the telly, and Who Dat havin’ a good season this year? The Saints. If they make it to the Superbowl, I hope we can find a place in Argentina to watch it.

I’m thankful that our resupply package from home arrived. We had it shipped a few weeks ago from the States, with refills for stuff we’ve used up in our First Aid kit, replacement parts for my C-PAP machine, and cold weather clothes that we’re absolutely going to need in Tierra del Fuego. Which segues into:

I’m thankful for people willing to meet with us and help us out along the way. On our first weekend in town we hooked up with our new friend Gabriela from Couchsurfing.com and hiked to the top of Cerro San Cristóbal. We also connected with our friend-of-a-friend Arnulfo to whom we’d had our resupply package shipped and who went to the trouble of extracting it from Chilean customs. Long-term travel would be much harder and lonelier without awesome, generous people along the way.

I’m thankful to put my backpack away for two weeks, even if our apartment is hot and noisy. I’m thankful that we can do our own laundry without having to carry it somewhere blocks away. I’m thankful that Santiago has such a fantastic subway system, and that all the public transportation routes are available in Google Maps. I’m thankful for American fast food restaurants, bless their hearts, and being able to have a little unhealthy taste of home after months on the road.

Now for the touristy stuff!

Cerro San Cristóbal

The first thing we did once we’d settled in, found groceries, and figured out the Metro system, was to climb the highest mountain in town and take a photo of the Virgin on top. This isn’t the first time we’ve done something like that. Looking through my blog posts I came across an early entry where I stated that we’d take gondolas up to the top of mountains instead of climbing them. It appears we’ve broken that promise to ourselves. We should really reassess. At least we’re not as crazy as the people who biked up the mountain that day.

Sampled Local Cuisine

A signature Chilean dish we’d been told about even before leaving Atlanta was “Italiano” style hot dogs and sandwiches. There’s nothing Italian about them. It’s just that Chileans love to layer avocado, mayonnaise, and tomato on things so that it looks like the colors of the Italian flag. Lea and I both agree that to do this to hot dogs (which is all the rage here) is a crime against tubed meat, but we were willing to try it on sandwiches. It’s… okay. Color me redneck, but I still prefer cheddar cheese, bacon, caramelized onions, and BBQ sauce.

At lunch, Arnulfo chided us Americans for putting BBQ sauce on everything. Given that in Alabama I used to eat BBQ sushi, I could hardly dispute the point.

Broadened Our Minds

This week we visited the Parque De Las Esculturas (Park of the Sculptures), Museums of Fine Arts/Contemporary Art, and Museum of Visual Arts, all of which have the virtue of being free to the public. Half of the Sculpture Park was closed for renovation, but the part that was open was nice to walk through. The Museums of Fine/Contemporary Art (two separate museums in a connected building) are currently housing an exhibit of the work of Roberto Matta, whose art is both bizarre and refreshingly different from the unending displays of religious art we saw from Ecuador to Bolivia.

Went Up the Tallest Building in Latin America

That’s Sky Costanera. This one we did not climb. For a somewhat pricey ticket, there’s a lovely elevator that will take you to the observation deck on the 61^st floor, and you can take an escalator from there to the 62^nd to get even higher. The bottom five floors of the building are part of an enormous shopping mall. What did I tell you about Chileans and malls?

Accidentally Stumbled On the Procession of Saint Martin de Porres

We don’t find parades and processions in South America, they find us. For once, though, we caught one right at the beginning. We were in the Plaza de Armas just wandering around when we saw a banner on the Catedral Metropolitana announcing a procession beginning in less than an hour. We waited around for mass to let out, the band to start up, and for Saint Martin to very slowly process out of the church. Right outside they paused for photographs and dancing (!) and then turned up the street. Lea and I, sleepy from a large helping of Burger King, headed home.

That’s all for now, folks. Next week, the rest of our stay in Santiago and the start of our journey into Chile’s Lake District. The road awaits!