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So I had decided that I didn’t want to keep repeating myself as I travel the world. I’ve been to Venice maybe four times and the last time I was there I remember saying to myself I’m never coming back to this place again. There are too many other places to see in the world to keep seeing the same thing over and over again. So earlier this year I wondered to myself what would be a really remote, unusual, and also fascinating place to visit that is off the beaten path. OK, how about Easter Island? You know that Polynesian place with all the strange statues? Well I would certainly like to see that up close, so I called Road Scholar and they were happy to set me up with a trip in the fall.
And now it's the fall. This is really a two-day page. I left home on October 7, flew to Atlanta, and then caught an overnight flight to Santiago, Chile. Never let it be said not much happened on the 7th, though. Actually this was a first for me -- a poochie for a seatmate on the way to Atlanta. I've had worse.
And now I’m settling in to my nest for an overnight flight from Atlanta to Santiago, Chile. That’s the closest stopping off point for a five hour flight out into the middle of the Pacific Ocean where I hope to find Easter Island.
Ahh...comfort.
And before you know it, morning has arrived and we're standing in line at Santiago customs.
This is Andrea, one of my Easter Island tour mates. What a pleasure and surprise it was to meet her! The first thing she said to me when she saw me at the airport was, "You're Bill Anderson? I read your website on your Road Scholar Morocco tour before I took the same trip just a few months ago!" "You read my website? That means I'm famous!" "Well, no, you're not famous but I did read your website before the trip." I'm pretty sure that makes me famous, Andrea, but have it your way. :-)
It was a nice hotel.
With a nice view of dreary Santiago weather. The temperature was in the 50s and it was drizzling rain. Even worse, the weather was not supposed to improve all day.
Here are our two guides for the day. That is Claudio on the left and Alvaro on the right. They are going to be great guides, I can tell already. The only drawback is that Claudio will be with us only today. Alvaro will guide us for the entire trip and he is right on top of things, as usual with Road Scholar guides. See that whiteboard behind Alvaro?
This is what they had drawn on it. It turns out Chile is noted for earthquakes and they needed to tell us what to do in an emergency. It’s really very simple, nothing to be concerned about. That 90° angle on the left is a bed, the circle is you, and the angled line is a wall that has fallen in. See how safe you will be if you just remember to roll off your bed and lie right there close up beside it? This trip could turn out to be truly memorable.
Claudio is showing us where we are going. Of all the islands in the entire world, this one is farthest from any other landmass. Easter Island.
Here’s our group. There are 17 of us.
It may be a miserable day, but that's not going to dissuade the Road Scholars from seeing Santiago. Now all of us are on an itty-bitty bus about to go on a tour of the city. Just next to our hotel is San Francisco Church, the oldest monument in the city. According to our Road Scholar daily guidebook, it has withstood several earthquakes. Must've rolled up next to the bed.
That is the executive building where Chile’s president works. Claudio called it their White House, but we explained it can’t be the White House because their president doesn’t live in this one.
Santiago is a big, bustling modern city.
Claudio took us into a nice old neighborhood. He explained that in the olden days it became the style to construct windows out of small pieces of glass. That’s because when big sheets of glass were shipped on sailing vessels around the southern tip of South America, they usually broke into shards. So they made windows out of what they had to work with.
The architecture in this neighborhood is…Interesting.
Pretty, too.
Graffiti artists have decorated the area.
Much of the graffiti looks like the crummy amateur graffiti you would see anywhere.
But some of it is nice.
Now we are getting a close-up look at the executive building. It's called La Moneda Palace and it was originally constructed to house the Mint of the Spanish Crown in the 18th century. Claudio wasn’t shy about pointing out that the United States supported the dictator Augusto Pinochet back in the 1970s. But he didn’t hold a grudge.
He proudly pointed out the statues of great leaders on the square in front of the Palace. Pinochet was not one of them.
That's where the Pinochet would stand to address crowds.
That's a shopping mall attached to what used to be the home of a rich family.
That's the home.
That's a big old court house. I can tell because I can see "Tribulales de Justicia" up top there.
And that's the Cathedral Church of Santiago, "rebuilt in 1748 on the very site where all four previous churches were destroyed by fires and earthquakes," according to our Road Scholar daily guidebook. Maybe I'd better study that earthquake safety diagram some more.
That’s the central market. Claudio explained that the people of Chile don’t eat frozen food as a general rule and in fact they look down on anybody who does because that’s cheating. There’s a range of mountains that run north south close to the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Chile And behind that range is a valley with very productive fields. Behind the valley is the Andes range. The people of Chile have access to so much fresh food they don’t need to freeze it.
We are taking a funicular up San Cristobal Hill (Cerro San Cristóbal). There's a lovely park up on top.
The park would be even lovlier if it weren't cold and rainy today.
It's a steep hill.
But Bill the intrepid adventurer is having a ball.
So's Martha.
Look out! We're going to crash!
Ah, we made it to the top.
That's the cold, wet lovely park.
And that's Santiago. Can you imagine what a great view this would be on a pretty day? Me neither, but I'm working on it.
There’s a statue of the
Virgin Mary high in the middle of the park. Those wires you can see
around her are part of a radio tower. Some people have called her
the Lady of the Immaculate Reception.
More Santiago. According to our Road Scholar daily guidebook those are the "majestic Andes" in the background. We need better weather.
Still more.
Some of our group walked the Stations of the Cross.
While others hung out with Claudio.
See the radio tower? Mary seems unperturbed.
We spotted something interesting on the way back down.
In 1987 the Pope rode this funicular! Is that great, or what?
It's just as steep going down as it was coming up.
And that was pretty much it for the day. We went back to the hotel and arrived at 7 PM and found our dinner ready for us so we just sat down and ate and headed for our rooms. We have to be in the lobby at 5:30 AM tomorrow for our ride to the airport and the plane that will take us to Easter Island. Sure hope the weather is better out there.
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