My last day in Santiago, I'm in a bistro cafe, having my dinner, chicken salad.  Went across the street to Inglasia San Fransisco the old church this morning, it was built in 1572, only eighty years after Columbus discovered the Americas, can't believe it, and so far down, so far inland from the Pacific Ocean.  The walls are about six or seven feet thick, so even though it was damaged it is still standing.  Went thru the museum this morning--it is in all the rooms surrounding the courtyard.  Hundreds of paintings on the walls, some have been restored, but most are very dark and hard to see.  There is one area were there were silver chalaces, but there were quite few considering the time when churches were smothered in gold and silver because. God deserved the best.  The explaination was that the Fransican monks wanted to have a church with more a humble outlook.  I was impressed with the whole place: it's age, that it is still standing, everything that was preserved....  National Museum of Chile, it is now housed in what was the orgoinal Royal, government Palace.  Native, old Spanish, developing governments, civil wars, wars between Bolivia and Peru against Chile, which Chile won and kept some land because of winning.  The museums history ended after Allende's death in early 1970's.  Had lunch almost litterly on the sidewalk, competing with the piggons for every crumb, the are really aggressive to get what they must feel is their part of my meal.  I went to the Museum of Santiago but it was closed.  Walked some more, the went to the National Theater for a tour, it was a family of three from Brazil, so the guide went back and forth from Portugase and English, apologizing for his lousy English, and he was head and shoulders above the gal who tried to present the city tour in English, and I told him and the ticket office who before the tour wad skeptical about allowing him to give a bilingual tour including English.  Well that was my day.  So let's try the download speeds at this cafe.

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Thursday evening, April 14.  One more whole day in Santiago, then Sat morning at 5 am off to the airport for me.  Ran into some folks I met on the boat, chatted awhile.  Had my city tour this morning, gal was friendly, wanted to be helpful, but her English was lacking.  She would talk to all the other folks in Spanish for a couple of minutes, then turn to me and haltingly say three to ten words slowly in English, then back to Spanish for a few more minutes of commentary, then to me with a very few words.  Now she knows English heads and tails more than I know Spanish, but when I paid for an English tour it didn't seem right.  She really tried, but wasn't up to it.  Oh well!  Such is life on the road.  Tried another way to lighten my load, remember the suitcase incident in Cusco where the price escalated from a ball park estimate of under $50 to a quoted price of $485 (or so), well I had inquired and found out the postal service was a lot cheaper than the commercial services (DHL), so I prepared a small box of stuff I had purchased, about 2kilo's, or 4+ pounds, and hiked over to the post office which had been identified on the tour, that was helpful, but after them opening the package, resealing it, then it was weighed, and the clerk's computer screen registered the air line price, the shipping--vis an actual ship, which took about longer, but I'm not home waiting for the package to arrive, right ?, so I opted for the slow boat to Des Moines, and it was sixty bucks or so--in rounded numbers math, so I declined again, so all purchases will stay with me for the duration, but be rebundled into my carry on, not the checked bag.  Had a great hot dog for lunch, Chilian salsa--includes mustard, and a coke zero.  Walked around some new areas, and ran across the national archives, saw an exhibition of the protests against the former military regime in the 80's.  And around the corner was the national library which had an exhibition about Chilian history, and the roll Cape Horn, Terra del Flago had on early history of Chile.  And it was a lot.  Couldn't read the Spanish explanations, but could decifer some, but the maps were great.  Copies on maps produced by Drake, Magillian,  Darwin and the crew of the Beagle...  Maps from the mid 1550's til the 20th century.  Many from the 1600's, it is amazing how accurate they were,  I remember really wondering how Clark (of Lewis and Clark in 1803-4-5) was so accurate on his maps of the twists and turns of the Missouri River, and if I remember correctly was off by about only fifty miles in recording the distances from St. Louis to Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River on the Pacific.  I took a picture of a 1600's map, which almost could be a satalite photo.   Amazing!!  Then I went across the street, that crazyly busy O'Higgins Avenue, to a huge church which had a sign saying that it had a colonial history museum.   And Oh boy! Was I ever surprised.  Don't know the age of the church, but bet it dates back to the early 1800's, rough cut huge stone walls, tombs of guys from the 1800's in the floors and walls, really old statues, ceiling paintings and tile work, large side altars about six or so of them... just everything seemed dated to that era.  The museum closed at 6pm

Damn, DAMN, D A M N,

Was typing for half hour, almost done with today's blog, something downloaded in the background, and rebooted the tablet, and I lost it all.  I have search for quite a while, but can't find it, can't find drafts...

So here's the abridged version:  had city tour this morning, guide very nice, much better at English than I am in Spanish, but I got little out of tour because she was striving for words to express herself, and would describe stuff in Spanish for all the other tourists for a minute or more, then she'd turn to me and haltingly say five or ten words, and often,  'that's the...' And no info about it.   Tried to mail some stuff home, but it costs over fifty bucks, forget it, it all comes with me, but in my carry on's , not my checked bag.  Walked new areas around here.  Then ran across the street to a big church... And boy was I ever surprised!!!  It must be two hundred years old judging from architecture, statues, building materials and the old style internal courtyard within the walls...very unique, historical.  The reason I crossed the street was the sign beside the church which said colonial museum.  It was closed, so I am going back tomarrow.  And as I was leaving, a whole bunch of people were going past the church museum part of the building thru an "alley" I followed them on a whim, and the alley opened up into an 1800's neighborhood of two and three story buildings of houses with ornate balconies, door and window treatments, small shops and restaurants, businesses on the first floor of some of the houses.  Wow!   And all of this one building away from the busiest street in town, and across the street from my hotel.  It is about three or four square blocks of antiquity, two hundred feet from hectic 2016

From last evening

Thursday morning, to up date last evening's post:
    the Chilian poet's name was Pablo Neruda.
    the Spanish architect's name was Sebastian Collado.

Wednesday, the 13th, I went on an all day tour to the ocean port city of Valporazo, it is a two hour drive considering am & pm rush hours.  We went thru three mountain valleys, including the central valley in which Santiago sits.  The first two valleys were reached via tunnels thru the coastal mountains and were very dry, and needed irrigation for anything to grow, but when we topped the creast of the last string of mountains we entered a forest of green trees of different kinds.  Now this area was still quite dry but the guide said that the humidity was high, and it did rain a little more than in the inner valleys, but as elsewhere, most rain came in the winter, May thru July, and of course it snowed at the same time in the Andes, and when it melts that is the source of almost all of the water from here to the ocean.   We went to the home of a Chilian poet, who had won a Nobel Prize, but it was the architecture of the building that was so unusual.  It took up very little square footage, with about two rooms per floor, but it rose about six floors to get the whole house put together.  Why such a weird design?  The terrain.  The hills-mountain comes down in fits and starts to within a couple of blocks from the ocean.  So houses, all buildings, except for the few blocks at the bottom, are built on extremely steep hillsides.  So thats why the constricted footprint of the houses.  Most are one, two stories or rarely three high, but this poet wanted something special so he imported an architect from Spain, who designed all three of the poet's homes, in fact the poet liked this house so much he named it after the architect.   And I must admit it is a beaut.  The views from the living-dining room, from his bed, and other areas of the house are supurb.  I'll have to add both of their names later when I get back to my room.  In this old hotel the internet only works on the second floor lobby and dinning room, and my backpack with the brochures is up in my 6th floor room, where there is no wifi.  We rode in the van and took in more of the city on cliff side roads, U-turn streets, viewing the buildings stacked almost atop one another, but smacked up next to each other, a few had gardens, and looking down the slopes it was hard to see how the buildings had access to get out to the streets.  The stairways connecting these homes to the public streets, "sidewalks", and dirt or brick paths were nerve wracking.  Can you imagine carrying groceries home, or moving in or out with mattresses, sofas or dining room hutches?

We saw a mauri/mori head from  Swiss clock donated to the city on one of it's anniversaries, and had lunch cliffside with pelicans flying around and perching on rocks just off shore.  I had lunch with a Chinese young lady, who had her suitcase aboard the van, because on the way back to Santiago, we dropped her off at the international airport, she was going home after the day tour.  We talked in depth about cultures, politics and economics... Truely enlightening.  This is the same airport I'll be heading to Saturday morning.  Well it's time for pictures.  Let's see how many  get to post, before I give up with the S l o w   d o w n l o a d I n g??????

The five pictures started downloading at 7:56 and it's now 8:43 so that is all the patience you will get from me right now considering my growling stomach.  The first three pics and the fifth on are intentional choices I made in downloading, the fourth one is the result of an unintentional finger flick, so intentional or an inadvertent finger flick you get to see it because of the download time and this blog isn't supposed to be a finished work of art, but my passing impressions about my "roundtheworldwithjoe" adventure.  Don't forget you can expand all the pictures on the blog for a better view if you are so inclined.  Nighty-nite, I'm off to dinner, a bit early for Latin standards, but I am hungry!  8:50 signoff.

Changed hotels, next four days thru very early Saturday Am the16th I'm at the Hotel Libertador, named after Bernado O'Higgins, the liberator of Chile from the Spanish in early 1800's.  He went to Argentina and got San Marten to come to Chile after San Marten successfully freed Argentina from Spanish.  So O'Higgins is the Chilian father of his country, despite his Irish name (his father immigrated to Chile) and the fact that O'Higgins got San Marten to assist him.  The hotel has a fantastic location, smack in the middle of old town Santiago, just blocks from all the government and old historic buildings, and it is on O'Higgins .... Avenue.  The cab fare was only 10,000 cp, Chilian Pesos, see how fast I'm adapting, ten thousand here, ten thousand there, and I am not yet talking big money, and it only took a half hour to get here, despite the traffic, it's in the same small spot of the map, not the other end of the city of eight million people. The hotel is old, clean, on the main street, and does not have the posh the other hotels I've stayed at in S. America.  But I don't care, it's decent, clean and close to what I want to see.   After I got to the Liberator, checked in and couldn't get the room til after two PM, so they put my luggage in a closet, and off I went.  Down three or four of those pedestrian streets, but these are really crowded, and almost there I must have looked perplexed, cause an older Chilian lady in her broken college English asked if I needed help finding what I was looking at on the map.  I was only a block  away so that was an easy fix.  Now, that was at least the third Hispanic lady in S. America who asked if I was lost, or warned me not to go further along the road.  I'll accept the help with gratitude, without realizing why I am getting the voluntary help.    What I was studying the map for was the Pre-Columbian museum.  I spent about three hours there, saw it all, and the Spanish descriptions were translated into English... So it made more sense to me.  Ate in a regular Restaurante, wanted to get back to the hotel, so I ordered a hamburger and fries.  And that,
's what I got.  A hamburger patty on the plate, along with a big mess of fries, a small side dish of salsa, and an uncut bakery roll, and the catchup, mustard and hot pepper sauce in the containers on the table, and no napkins, even after I asked for one, for about twice the price of the McDonalds down the street that I didn't stay at because they didn't have Coke Zero (no calories or cafeine).  I confirmed the Chile GreyLines city tour I purchased  back in Des Moines for half a day Thursday, and then bought a whole day tour of Valporazo, the port city on the Pacific Ocean about 90 minutes west of here.  Then I will have half of Thursday and all day Friday to see some more of Santiago.   Think I will go out on the main drag in the opposite direction I took this morning on the way to the museum just to see what's there, before it gets dark (there my darling daughter, I am being careful).

First two pics are from the Pre-Columbian Museum in Santiago wooden carved statues showing the Polynesian influence on the mainland.  (Easter Island is off shore quite a way and has been part of Chile since 1888, but the islanders became citizens in the 1960's.  The 'neckless' is the Incan writing system, but experts differ if the knots on the strings are writing or only accounting, the knots have as yet not been deciffered.  The are grouped in tens, one string then has ten strings hanging from the first one.   They were worn-carried around the neck like a neckless.  And again the pedestrian streets crowded, and with street sellers of everything located everywhere.   Not too many pictures tonight because the download time is slower than a small crawling on sandpaper, and the internet only works on the second floor 'lobby'.   More after Valporazo tomarrow.

Santiago, city tour, city impressions

Three pm, a little late for typical lunch time in Santiago, finished my city tour, and I am at a Chilian Restaurante that was recommended by the hotel desk senorita.  Very nice, gonna have a typical Chilian dinner, and Chilian kunstmann beer.  Not very hoppy.  The dinner has beef, the rest will be a surprise.  There is a huge 'rock' in the middle of the city, we'd call it a stand-a-lone mountain, away from the rest of the Andes chain of mountains to the east and the coastal mountains between us and the ocean to the west in between which is Chile's central valley, in which Santiago sits.  Santiago has about 8 million people, and like Buneos Aires, Lima and Cusco, is packed with cars, busses, trucks, and tourist vans.  It is a very comfortable 70 degrees, with an occasional breeze.  The sidewalks since eight am this morning are teaming with walkers, everywhere.  Dinner's arrived, we'd call it a pot pie.  Will continue after lunch.   Forty five minutes later, l've eaten the pot pie, which came in an earthen ware pot, seven inches across, and four + inches deep.  A corn bread type golden brown crust across the top, and the insides were beef stew bits, but they were the size of my finger nail, not the two inch pieces of stew beef we get from the Hyvee.  Then there were mashed corn bits as a primary ingredient, black olives-with pits, a chicken leg on bone, egg both scrambled and hard boiled, and a few greeny veggies.  Was good.  Now desert has arrived, six inches tall, six alternating layers of pale colored pastery, Carmel sauce dribbling down the sides, strawberries a top of whipped cream on the side.  More after I eat this desert.  It was served cool, the white layer was slightly crunchy, the yellowish layer was like a frosting, and was quite sweet.  Ate half, the rest is in a plastic bag ready to go.  My check just arrived:
pastel de choclo.                          $8,500
Kunstmann sin filtar.                 $2,900
Agua S/gas.                                   $1,800
Gotta merengue/lucuma.          $3,200
Total a pagar.                            $16,400

Now remember there are about 690 pesos to the dollar, so it's not so bad, and with the tip of 10% written right on the bill it's $18,040.  Going to go and walk off these calories, so more tonite.
Walked quite awhile, architecture amazing, so many unique buildings.

SANTIAGO BUILDINGS,  expand pics so can see better, price of one Snickers bar, presidential changing of the guard.

The city tour except for, 'the rock' was of the downtown area of older buildings, many government buildings, parks and squares.  My tour of South America is over tomorrow after breakfast, but I am staying in Santiago four more days at a different hotel which is located in the downtown-old area of Santiago, so since I just got just got a brief taste today, I'll comment more in the upcoming days when I can walk around and see them in detail. After my additional days in Santiago I am off to the Falkland Is!ands, which I have to wait four days until my once a week flight leaves from here to there.  Bye for tonight!