Un poco Chile

Does anyone even read blogs anymore? Or have our attention spans been reduced to the likes of TikTok and Instagram?

I’m not doing TikTok or Instagram. I’m too old and I can’t be bothered with this newfangled techy stuff. If no one reads this, then no matter. It’s my outlet.

Anyway.

So, right now, I’m in Buenos Aires. And before here, I was a week in Santiago. And before there, I went through the manic process of moving out of the tiny flat I’ve lived in for five years and squeezing all my stuff into my room at mum and dad’s, which mostly went well but was also a something a… change. So, by the time I got to Argentina, my head was in a spin with all the ch-ch-changes… and I suppose I haven’t yet really come back down to earth.

Hence this blog may be a bit haywire.

But I’ll start with Santiago, obvs. I was told it was a ghetto (thanks, Milos!), and dangerous, and rife with petty crime, and expensive, and well, beautiful. On my first night, I went for a badly jet-lagged run along what seemed on Google maps to be a fairly straight road (it wasn’t) and only found that later that ‘d run through Recoleta, one of the slummiest and grottiest areas in the whole dang city.

No matter, I survived; and took myself out for a half-assed hamburger and very excellent gin and tonic afterwards.

The following Saturday morning, I trusted Google maps again and set off towards some sort of green area… and found myself running up a steep asf slope with dozens of other walkers/runners/cyclists/dogs/children/Zumba enthusiasts (Zumba classes were in full swing halfway up). And then I reached the peak and, wow. Santiago might be a ghetto (in parts) but the Andes are all kinds of epic. The views from the top of San Cristobal will blow your mind.

The rest of that Saturday was spent taking a more leisurely meander up the same hill with a charming young lad called Javier who, despite being only 24, spoke perfect English and didn’t mind taking my comparably ancient ass on a tour of San Cristobal and the Sanctuary of the Virgin Mary. He introduced me to mote con huesillo, which is sold from vendors all over the mountain, and basically consists of sugar and dried peaches and mote, husked wheat. It’s not bad, but I dunno if I’d make a habit of it.

And then, of course, we had beers and sangria.

Santiago got very warm the week after, which isn’t my thing, so I didn’t mind leaving. I liked the city, though. The people were amazingly friendly and very forgiving of my abhorrent failure to understand Spanish. Food was kinda… eh. I had one memorable empanada, which was maybe only memorable because I was hungry and it had been nuked enough for the cheese to be melty-good. Everything sweet or salty is plastered with the government-issued warnings ALTO EN CALORIAS or ALTO EN SODIO, and bars of chocolate over 200g come in a locked container that can only be released at the checkout.

Mad.

But it was a good week, and I’m glad I did the stopover instead of charging on through to Argentina. Which, as I will get to later on, has been quite… a lot.

But, until then, here’s Santa Lucia Hill – right in the centre of Santiago. Good for views and cardio.