February 2, 2019: Touring Santiago, the Capital of Chile.
Santiago is the largest city in Chile with over 7 million people. 42 % of the country’s population live and work here. Maria, our city tour guide, picked us up at 9:30 and we spent the next three hours exploring the heart of the city, beginning with the major city square where the most important buildings are.
Santiago was founded in 1541 by Spanish conqueror Pedro de Valdivia. In the Spanish style the main square is surrounded by the cathedral and the major government office buildings.
Nearby was an excellent cultural museum where we toured the section called “Chile before Chile”. I was fascinated to see that Chileans mummified their dead thousands of years before the Egyptians. There were marvelous displays of pre-Colombian pottery, jewelry and even clothing. It is extremely well done, and English descriptions were at each exhibit.
Also close by is the rebuilt presidential palace that had been destroyed in the 1970s when democratically elected socialist Salvador Allende was ousted by US backed General Augusto Pinochet in a military coup on ironically, September 11, 1973. That resulted in a 17 year military dictatorship led by Pinochet. Today Chile is democratic once again and is one of the more stable economies in South America.
It was 1:30PM by the time we finished and some people chose to wander through the Bellavista area and ride the cable car and/or the funicular to the top of the nearby mountain to get a view of the city. Five of us chose to ride back to the hotel and adjourn for a beer and pizza at a local restaurant where some people ate last night. They were right; it was excellent. I later showered and grabbed a one hour nap as I was coughing and had a runny nose.
Our farewell dinner was held at the hotel. It was a bit of a disappointment-chicken at a hotel. I will comment on it when we do the survey of the trip. Others agree it would have been much nicer to go to a local restaurant. About half the group are headed home tomorrow evening while the rest of us head to Easter Island on the post-trip extension.