Chile

So I made it in and out of Chile with no incident. My flight from Bogota to Santiago was rescheduled a few days in advance to run an hour later, but aside from that it was right on time. There was apparently a lot of damage to the passenger terminal, so they had set up makeshift facilities for processing everyone. The kept us on the plane for about 15 minutes after we stopped while they removed all out bags and laid them out on the tarmac. We then disembarked the plane, picked our bag off the ground, and followed a set of orange street cones to one of those large while plastic tents where you might have an indoor wedding reception. Inside there they had set up the customs process with processing and baggage screening. After finishing that you just walked out to the airport parking lot where the different rental car and transportation companies were just set up on the sidewalk. You just popped by, waited for your ride, and then headed into the city. Overall, I was pretty impressed with the efficiency of the thing. I've certainly had much bigger hassles at the airport in my day.

In my 2 1/2 days there I never noticed too much damage in either Santiago or Valparaiso. Aside from the airport, I saw two bridge overpasses which had large fissures where the bridge met the land (although both were still open for traffic), one museum whose facade had crumbled a bit, and maybe 4-5 large broken pane glass windows. A few sights were also closed, including the museum with the crumbling facade, one other museum in Viña del Mar, the cable car that takes you to the top of the big hill in Santiago, and another hilltop viewpoint in the city. Aside from these few things, though, it seemed to be pretty much business as usual in the area. All the other museums were open and full of people, the restaurants and cafes were filled with people eating, drinking, and relaxing all weekend, and the night club I went to was packed with people at 3:00 AM. So while the quake obviously is dominating the news and conversation there, everyone seems to be moving on.

The city was really enjoyable. It's a pretty modern city, with lots of older beaux arts and other historical architecture thrown in which gives it a really nice flavor. I spent a full day walking the city center, and another day taking a day trip to Valparaíso. Valpo was really quaint, too, although it didn't pack quite the punch I was expecting. Being a UNESCO World Heritage City, I was expecting something really amazing. It was certainly nice and worth visiting, but I'm glad I didn't plan to spend more time there as it didn't quite live up to the extremely high expectations I had for it.

The food was generally pretty good in Chile, too. After spending 15 days in Colombia I was certainly ready for something different. The grub in Colombia was nice, but I had become thoroughly burnt-out on fried food after my first week (they deep fry damn near everything in that county outside of the really high-end restaurants). So I was really looking forward to some of that fresh Chilean seafood. The place I went on my first night didn’t disappoint. I had a grilled octopus with ratatouille and some kind of egg dough construction, a sautéed sea bass filet with assorted mushrooms and a porcini mushroom broth, and a light banana and mango soup with fresh berries for dessert, all of which were killer. I paired these with a Chilean Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, each of which drank like a bottle of fine Burgundy 3 times their price. If I recall correctly, this grand feast cost me a total of around $45 US.

After this I was figuring I was going to eat like a king every meal of the day the rest of my vacation. Unfortunately, it turns out the place I went to isn’t representative of the food scene as a whole. I went to the Santiago fish market the next morning, during which I hit one of the little mom-and pop stalls around the market for what I was expecting to be the best piece of swordfish I’d ever had. What they brought me smelled pretty bad, and tasted even worse. It took me 10 minutes to wash the nasty taste out of my mouth. They replaced it with something else, which while not rancid like the first item, was still a little underwhelming. I had a similar experience that night for dinner. At this place I ordered a Patagonian deer tenderloin which came out overcooked. I also had a salad with proscuitto which came out undressed and, as far as I could tell, unseasoned. Now, I can cut Colombia some slack from my particular brand of food fascism, but Chile? C’mon man! You’re a developed country! Undressed salad? WTF!!!

That being said, the quality of the food is still quite good, even when prepared without much flair or panache. They grow just about every kind of produce imaginable in Chile, so everything is very fresh. So even when things are prepared very simply, like a sautéed sea bream with (undressed!) avocado salad on the side, it’s still quite good. And you can always get the kind of modern preparation at upscale places, which will cost you just a fraction of what it would back home.

On Sunday I caught my bus to Mendoza. We can chalk this one up as yet another drive that is worth taking simply for the views, regardless of whether you need to get anywhere or not. Chile’s Maipo wine region is right by the city (it’s so close you can take a taxi to some of the wineries), so we passed though that on the way. Central Chile is a desert, so I got some really interesting photos of vineyards with the desert mountains in the background. The portion of the drive right before we got into Argentina was also a stunner. It’s a good thing Laura wasn’t with me, as you have to make about 30 hairpin turns in about 10 minutes for the steep climb right before the border, which given her bus travel issues would have undoubtedly ended with her lunch on the floor.

I also got some nice snaps on the Argentina side. I’ll get everything posted ASAP.