Strange things from Santiago

Santiago has many unknown facets some of which will be revealed here.


Fact 1:

Fire hydrant orphans are often left on the streets to fend for themselves.  Through the generous donations of gringos, such as ourselves, you can adopt an orphaned fire hydrant for the day and take it walking with you.

Fact 2:
It gets so hot here that the bases of some trees melt.

Fact 3.

Graffiti artists have to pay per square metre of building they want to paint on.  Poorer artists have adopted the more cost effective method of arbol art.

Today we bused to Valparaiso (or Valpo as the locals call it).  The bus terminal in Santiago is a microcosmos of great throngs of people either coming or going.  We didn't know which group we belonged to.  

It was the first time we'd been out of bed before 9:00 as we're all still suffering from jet-lag.  I'm a foot taller than most men here and with two blond daughters we stand out in any crowd.

After a conversation with the conductor from one of the many bus companies that thread their way throughout this long skinny country, we finally agreed that yes we had reserved seats on the 8:30 bus and yes he'd told us to wait by the side and yes it was now 8:40.  I tried my best to ask him at what time do I start to panic but apparently my Spanish does not work at bus terminals.

He did eventually hand deliver us to the driver of our bus who took us on a very pleasant 90 minute journey to Valpo.  The seats equalled those of business class airline seats.  The buses are smoke free and there is even a movie dubbed in Spanish to watch on the way.  It was an Adam Sandler movie so there wasn't too much to think about.

Modern play equipment

Constant smog covering the mountain

We've happily left Santiago.  We did feel safe there and everyone was helpful and patient with us, but our intention was always to spend a few days there to help us acclimatise before moving on.

Tuna and mayo in the hotel

The food must be good.

We were at Plaza de Armas where beggars and buskers vie for a few coins from your pocket. Stand there long enough and you'll see some of them switch to automatic pilot going through the motions of performing. We dropped a few hundred pesos into a chalk artist's shoebox. I often wonder what comes first, the talent or abject poverty.

It was getting close to dinner time and we walked down an alley with a dozen hot dog vendors in it. Each one had a banner advertising an amazing deal: two hot dogs and a drink for 1,000 pesos.  That's as cheap as chips.  Truce wasn't hungry, one hotdog for me and one for Indiana.

In my broken Spanish I order el deal de stupenda. The lady behind the counter smiled at my attempts to butcher her language. 

The hotdogs were ready and she lumped on the raw tomato and cheese of some liquid variety.  And what of the tomato and cheese that fell on her fingers?  This is when I realised two things: one, the food must be good and two, she must have clean fingers.  She casually licked her thumb and finger clean before preparing the second hotdog.

Internal dialogue:  Pretend you didn't see it.  You don't know what happens to your food at a restaurant.  It'll build my immunity.  (Moment of realisation) She licked her fingers after the first hotdog - give Indiana the second hotdog.  It'll build her immunity.

Going Green to the extreme

Put your pitchforks and torches down.  I gave Indiana the first hotdog but she asked for the tomato to be removed.  As I scrapped my finger along the bun I felt that the sausage was colder than the belly of a one-legged penguin.

We opted out on the hotdog experience that night and lived to tell the tale.

An eclectic mix of building styles

Truce's take on inflight safety.

We've had a call from QANTAS asking Truce to star in their new inflight safety video. 

 Click the link to view.



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We're not in Kansas anymore.

We’ve just come from the Sunshine Coast which has had one of the wettest summers in a long time.  Everything is green (some people even have green growing on their walls).  To land in a city that has about two rainy days a month is quite a contrast.  As we were raced to our hotel by a taxi driver who came top of his class in Taxi school (accelerate, swerve then indicate intent to swerve) we saw a Hyundai car yard which had everything from hairdryers with wheels to earth movers that could relocate Uluru.  All of them were covered in dust.

Uptight gringas

I think we came through the poorer part of town as the graffiti and prisonlike enclosures around houses gave a very distinctive vibe.  One guide book finishes its description of Santiago with “It ain’t no Paris.”

Gringas getting in the groove.

The people are very polite and put up with our poor attempts at Spanish.  Some take the time to speak a little slower while one security guard gave me a piece of paper and asked me to draw what I was after.  With our very limited knowledge of the language I feel confident that we’ll pick up the lingo quickly.  I was walking with Truce this afternoon and she asked in a very confused voice.  “How come we’re in Chile and we can’t speak Spanish?”  All of last year we’d been saying that when we move to Chile we’ll speak Spanish.  She must have thought there was some magical process that took place during the thirty minute wait to be seen by customs. 

The internet connection here makes it very difficult to put photos on the web at the moment.  We were told that there was Wi-Fi at the hotel but it’s more like dial up that seeps in through the under the door. 

Ice creams (helado) are cheap and the girls were enjoying having one after lunch and dinner but tonight we realised that we better start some sort of budgeting and we don’t want the kids to think that it’s ice creams for all.

On one street there were five shops all selling blenders and vacuum cleaner parts.  The strange thing is they were all adjoining shops.  Most shops in Australia are working on becoming plastic bag free, where as here there is a real love affair with having your shopping put into a plastic bag (bolso).  I was in the supermercado and said to the person who packs the shopping, “No bolso, por favor.”

The response was of genuine shock, “¿No bolso, señor?”

I'll finish renovating tomorrow.

With some careful planning it’s possible to eat on a cheap budget.  It’s easy to spend 20,000 to 35,000 pesos on a “cheap dinner” at a restaurant but we’ve been buying a small packet of ham, cheese and crackers from Lido for 3,000 pesos.  Tubs of yoghurt for the kids are only 100 pesos (AU$0.20) Once we have permanent residence food will be the least of our worries.  But for the moment, while we’re at the hotel without refrigeration or cooking facilities we have to make do.

The flight

All the guide books told us that you have to pay for your tourist visa, a one off payment, with cash.  This is not true – they do accept cards.  We were also informed that they don’t give change, this too is incorrect.

But what about the flight I here you ask?  When we checked into Brisbane we were sitting together but our forwarding tickets from New Zealand had us scattered about the plane like some human Easter Egg hunt. I had visions of some childless couple having to cut Truce’s meals for her.  Thankfully we were repositioned to be sitting together. 

The kids were able to curl up in their seats and sleep a third of the journey away.  As for Talluah and I didn’t sleep a wink and Talluah did not share my enthusiasm that we had technically watched three movies and had meals that she hadn’t prepared, thereby qualifying the flight as three “date nights”.

Landing in Santiago saw us enter the latest sport in the Airport Olympics:  The 100 metre Avoid the Taxi Spruiker Sprint.  Indiana lost points in the event because she made eye contact with one of the spruikers.  I was awarded a foul for replying in English and Talluah had two seconds added to her time due to hesitating before a giving a negative response.  Truce shone at this event due to her stature allowing her to slip in under the radar.

We’re adventurers, we take local transport.  Gringos chicken out in shuttle buses and taxis.  If we can’t take a train or bus we’d rather walk.  Anyway, here’s a photo of Truce and Indiana’s first Taxi ride in Chile.  

Living the life of a Rock Star

Fire Hydrants are people too.

This is a cute practice in the city to personify the fire hydrants.

A train trip for training.

The old travel adage of, if you can’t carry it, you don’t need it, has been running through our heads for the past couple of days as we packed and repacked our suitcases trying to maintain the twenty-three kilo limit and allowing for how much the kids can comfortably carry.

We caught the train to Brisbane a day early to make our 6:30 a.m. check-in more bearable.  Catching the train also gave us a chance to test our mobility.  The plan was to stay with my brother (the Brisbane Harpers) for the night so he could drive us to the airport at dawn.  It sounds simple enough.  However most of my family members have some sort of vegetable patch in their backyard.  Any family gathering is akin to a Farmer’s Market where passionfruit is exchanged for pumpkins and spinach is traded for lettuces.

My mother’s corn crop loves all the rain we’ve been getting and this morning, while we were having a quiet farewell morning tea, she asked if we could take some corn to the Brisbane Harpers.  Sure, why not?  How hard can if be to take luggage for a year overseas and a few kilos of corn?

Talluah’s parents drove us to the train station and we began our train trip which we had affectionately called Operation: Dry Run.   Train rides are rare for us and still very exciting for the girls.

To any parents who are reading this, you can skip the next part, you’ve experienced it before.

6 minutes into the trip:  Indiana says, “I’m hungry.”  We just had lunch twenty minutes ago.

16 minutes: “I stood on some chewing gum.”

28 minutes: Truce asks, “Are you allowed to dance on trains?”  I nod.

42 minutes: “I’m still hungry”  Crisps come out of the bag.

50 minutes: “I need to go to the toilet,” says Indiana.

53 minutes: “Where’s Indiana?” asks Talluah.  “She went to the toilet,” I reply.

“She’s been gone a while.”

I stand, “Maybe she’s having troubles with the door.”  I walk to the toilet and knock on the door.  “Are you OK Indy?”

Her voice comes muffled through the door.  “The lock is stuck.  I turned it towards unlock but it won’t work.”

“Try turning it the other way.”

The door slides open.

We had to change trains and with the inbuilt directional gene that all men carry I told my family that we had to cross the tracks to the platform on the other side.  We sized up the overhead walkway with its antiskid red painted steps and began our ascent.

Truce and Indiana pulled their little rolley suitcases, I lumbered with two rolley suitcases and a backpack.  Talluah  heaved our two lots of carry on luggage plus the corn for my brother and a separate bag for the clothes that we were going to wear for the flight.

At the top of the overpass I told the kids to wait with the bags then ran down to the bottom to help Talluah with her burden.  Once she was at the top I ran down the other side, dropped our bags at the bottom, kept the backpack on and ran back up the stairs to help Talluah and the kids with their things.  For a three year old, Truce carries her fair share. 

Once we were all safely on the other side I realised that the as an English teacher, swinging a whiteboard marker around is not considered suitable training for carrying 60kg of luggage on the Railway Stairmaster. I puffed over to a conductor and asked when the next train to Petrie was. 

“The Petire line is on the other platform,” he said.  “You’ll have to cross over.”

With 90% humidity and 32 degree heat we repeated our tag team effort to get the children and luggage up and over to the other side of the station.  As I joined my family at the bottom of the steps I felt like I was a contestant on some weight-loss reality TV show.

I think there’s time for one more repack to cull some more clothes.