I have now spent two days in the capital, Santiago. I arrived yesterday morning and got out of the subway with my eyes on the map. When I found my bearings I started walking and finally looked up from the map and saw...The Andes. They´re just right there in the background...a bit snow capped. The weather here is lovely...It´s about 80, very sunny, not at all humid and with a light breeze. I´ve been slathering on sunblock at a rapid pace.
The city is very big (about 6 million, I think). The center of town has a lot of big, imposing neo-classic buildings (banks, government buildings, etc) and then there are a lot of 70s and 80s kind of ugly buildings mixed in. Yesterday, Saturday, there were throngs of people out milling about...loads of street vendors, etc. I am so pleased with my horse hide shoe inserts that I bought another pair. I visited the big fish market, the cathedral, the big park on the hill, several monuments, etc. This morning I went to the museum of pre-colombian art, the museum of visual arts, La Chascona (another home of Pablo Neruda) and visited some of the interesting neighborhoods. I feel like a true tourist doing lots of city sight seeing and I am exhausted...but in a good way. Tomorrow I plan to visit a few more churches, parks, and neighborhoods and tomorrow night will take a bus to Puerto Varas farther south.
Oh, and on the communication front...whereas I could understand, perfectly, the tour in Spanish at the Pablo Neruda house, I am still having a tough time understanding regular folk (at the restaurant, on the metro, at the bus station, etc.) Or, for example, when I try to read the side of the Lysol can in the bathroom and I believe it to say "Very flammable. Do not crush can near llama." I´m, evidently, not adapting.
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