Santiago: How I barely got to know thee

Our time in Santiago is over now and we are back in New Zealand. So I'm reflecting on this last 3 month long adventure. What can I say? We had an apartment located just south of the Santa Lucia Metro Station on San Isidro. It was a 1 bedroom on the 11th floor that during the day was filled with the noise of the construction crew next door or at night the sounds of a barking dog. It however was a pretty good home with wonky floor boards. I coincidentally reconnected with a high school classmate whom I've not seen in 20 years, but happened to live less than a 10 minute walk away, via Instagram because of a common friend. Go Instagram for your algorithms. Less than a block a way, we had a circus class. So we could continue our training in an interesting gym. We found an amazing place called Lola's a short walk away to indulge in my ice cream habit. There was a very welcoming running group, Green Trail Club, at Parque Metropolitano that I got along well with. It was a paid membership group, but they had a nice coach to help you get to where you wanted to be fitness wise. I met some gnarly mtb riders and did a few rides with them. This only scratches the surface though. We did a lot of things over the couple months we were based in Santiago.

I didn't use Meetup as heavily as I do in New Zealand as there weren't a lot of postings and the ones that were posted weren't that interesting. I did attend a photography group where we wandered around the La Vega Market for a morning taking and discussing photography. I tend to take a lot of photos, but felt like I could make them look a little better. I tend to document what I see and do rather than artistic type of photos. So I had a play at some more artistic types of photos on this adventure though. Here is a photo album from our time in Chile, not just Santiago.

Food:
27. 27, the number of empanadas I consumed in the last 3 months. The standouts include a joint in Rapa Nui, aka Easter Island, and a place called Aqui Pepe Empanadas in Santiago. I've tried a variety of flavors. I didn't just stick with the quintessential flavor: Pino. I started working my way through the Top 5 Empanadas for 2018 list. I tried 2 out of 5. I had them from street vendors to restaurants. Each having their unique take on a simple dish. Some were decent, others were awful. Only a few were worth going back for another. We also took an afternoon and learned how to make our own pino empanadas. So these will be added to my yearly list of things to make. Much like pasties as they are labor intensive. So have to set aside time just to make them. I wonder how well they freeze.

I judged the empanadas similarly to how I judge a pie.

1. The crust has to hold up to being maneuverable. If it breaks apart, it is crap. Its a hand held food.
2. The crust has to have substance, texture, and flavor. There are different style of crust. Some go for crispy, thin pizza like crust while others favor the other extreme of doughy, pan pizza like crust. Or somewhere in the middle. I prefer them crispy, but they have to have flavor by themselves as the folded edges don't have any filling and must taste good on their own.
3. I typically eat baked empanadas over fried, but not always. If fried they can't hold the oil flavor.
4. Filling must have a depth of flavor. The pino has a combination of meat, onion, cumin, olive, egg, and raisin among other things. Nothing should over power the other, but you should be able to taste the distinct elements as you eat.
5. Filling must fill the entire cavity. Nothing worse than taking that first bite and seeing that the filling fills less than half of the pocket. That is a lot of real estate taken up by air. It also weakens the crust and is more likely to fall apart.
6. Cost. They have to be cheap. That being said, the empanada in Rapa Nui was the most expensive one we purchased and it was damn good. 

Our neighborhood had a lot of Venezuelan places to try. We tried several of them and found out that we enjoyed cachapas, a corn pancake filled with meat and cheese, and patacones, smashed double fried plantain cakes used instead of bread, sandwiches. I've already looked at how to make these when we get the craving for them again. These can be done much simpler than empanadas so could possibly have more frequently.

I've got a thing about eating from food trucks, stalls, and markets. More times than not I've found some of my best meals there. They also tend to be cheap with lots of diverse options. Steph and I went to what I thought was a pretty obscure food truck event hidden in a parking lot on Cerro San Cristobal. The event was not well publicized or sign posted. Instead you already had to know it was going on and walk until you found it located in a back parking lot. Most people aren't going to stumble upon this location or event. Even though the number of trucks was pretty small, we were pleasantly surprised by the food that we ate. With the amount of people that go up Cerro San Cristobal located in the Parque Metropolitano, you should be able to have a bigger number of visitors and increased vendor participation. So up your game food trucks of Santiago!

Restaurant wise, a big standout for me was Insert Coin Bar. The decor is straight up awesome and the food above average. You'll find the Super Mario Question Block being used as lamp shades as well as many iconic video game characters adorning the walls. There are video game inspired food and drinks. Including glasses that resemble health potions or Donkey Kong's barrels. But the real highlight is that you are sat at tables where you either get access to play a console or board games. You are supposed to have a 90 minute limit, but I don't think its strongly enforced. There are even some pinball machines around. If that is your jam. There are 2 different locations, but be warned there can be long wait at night. Bring your ID. This is needed to secure the controllers.

Music:

We went to an outdoor cumbia festival called Festival Chelero, which had a lot of food trucks and craft beer. Later I went to an arena cumbia show. These were something else. One of the big bands at the moment is this young band called Santaferia. Give them a listen. These bands each have a specific type of fan,but they all have immense energy. One band could have a young crowd while the next would have an aging population that is older than our friend Raf. They all enjoyed the music and then ecstatically wave their band's flag when their favorite took the stage. Eh Eh Eh.

Biking:

I got out to ride trails 3 times over the past 3 months. I first rode with Paticio from Huaso Tours on the trails around Cerro San Cristobal. These trails would be impossible to figure out without a guide. There are no signs or maps. We would ride down a fire road then dip off around a fence to find a track or ride across some brush around a corner only to find a trail. On our ride, we had to push up a steep hill to get to a gentle track next to the waterway that feeds Parque Metropolitano. The other rides were with Jean Claude of biketur. We tackled trails at Durazno Park in search of the Andes Secret Spot. On this ride you dip under the fence out of the park and into some sweet rocky chutes. The trails are dusty and loose. I washed out on some descending corners when the trail acted like a Thanos snap victim and faded away. On a sharp pinch up, I ended up snapping a chain and I had a long bike push back to the house. The next ride was a Thursday Night Shop Ride with some of Jean Claude's mates up Manquehue. This involved a long climb with some great views of the city behind us. It was cool to see the city lit up from high up. The descents were tricky as they were stupid steep and rocky and I couldn't pick out a line because the dust from the previous rider was blocking my vision. This ride ended at midnight and I didn't get home until almost 1 am as I cycled back to the apartment from the shop. Not an issue because Santiago hardly sleeps!

I did a lot of road riding to explore the city. Good thing as I brought over my pink cross check in order to do this. Many weekends I would join a bunch of muppets in riding the CicloRecreoVia. This shuts down lots of streets and brings a lot of people out. This includes bikes, walkers, runners, roller skaters and roller bladders, dogs, as well as fitness classes being taught alongside the road or in the parking spaces. I used my bike as a way to see and get to the know city. I didn't use it as a means of commuting as I didn't work. I only recall locking it up a handful of times. Mainly I would ride around for hours just exploring. Sometimes using the cycle lanes or other times playing leap frog with buses and taxis as they pulled over to allow passengers on or off.

A note about cycling in Santiago. There needs to be a map and app of the cycle lanes that you can map a safe route to your destinations The lanes themselves need a lot of work. There were no rhyme or reason to how they were thrown down. They were sometimes one directional on the road with traffic. Other times they were one directional on the road against traffic. Then again they could be found on the sidewalk. Or they could be separated from traffic with both one- or bi-directional lanes on either side of the road and these could switch over intersections. It took a little getting used to but I also just took the lane and did not ride in the cycle lane all the time.

Meetup:

They aren't that many options to choose from, but I did attend a photography group. We met up at La Vega and shot for the morning. We then had lunch over at Tienda La Molina. The group leader then proceeded to jet off home to Canada for a few weeks. I had hopes to attend the sunset meetup, but I ended up working as volunteer at an English Coding Camp in a different city. Then we went out to Banos Morales and I missed the last meetup that I could have possibly attended.










Circus:
We had found a few places on line, but when I reached out to them nobody got back. It was on one of my early walks that I saw a place called Polecross just down the street from us. The building is crazy as there are several tenants. Up front was a dairy and a Venezuelan place. After walking through that you get to the gym. The gym comprised of a crossfit section, a place for circus stuff, and pole fitness in the way back behind 2 big sliding doors. They would be blasting AC/DC and might have a fan blowing, but the room was super hot. We practiced lyra while we were there from Consuela. She spoke very little English so we typically just watched her do it and then we mimicked her. During the later classes we understood a little more of what she was saying so a demonstration wasn't needed. As a few other students started coming as they were off of holiday. These were pretty intense 2 hour sessions. The warm up involved lines, abs, conditioning, tumbling skills, and handstands. Then we would get on one of the 3 lyras. We worked on a variety of different skills. It is something different from the static trapeze I've been doing in Wellington and required me to work differently. Lyra is Beth's apparatus though. So she continued to work on her many skills on it.

Random Activities:
We went to an Outdoor Expo where there was a small climbing wall, a slack line, an archery target, a tent about bike packing, and a tent with running gear. We bought some fun buffs. I got a Darth Vader and Beth got a fun unicorn one. There were also presentations on the main stage, but they were in Spanish so we didn't pay much attention to them. We ended up doing a couple Instagram Story Videos for a couple of tents.

While out walking one day we came across a sign for Fantasy and Fiction Convention. We came back to find a small gathering of local comic artists selling their work. A few sculptures and make-up artists as well. Once you paid the entry you gained access to the cultural building. Outside there was a Scout Walker and a speeder bike. There were then Lego versions of Yoda and Darth Vader along with some other Lego characters. Inside there were rooms filled with private collections. These could be tributes to Marvel or Adam West's Batman. There were a few sponsored rooms that included The Lego 2 Movie and Aquaman. My favorite room was of course Star Wars. This included a 1-to-1 Scale Millennium Falcon cockpit. When we were leaving a girl dressed as Rey was posing in the cockpit for photos.

We checked out both the Museo Cielo Abierto, which consists of murals on buildings, and Parque De Las Esculturas, which consists of sculptures next to the river. The first is in a small community South of CBD. We biked over, but it might be possible to bus as well. We wondered around admiring the street art. These could be up to 3 stories tall and pretty intricate. The latter involved a lot of different types of sculptures that laid strewn about the side of the Mapocho River.









Quirks:

• Saying hello and goodbye to people in the elevator
• No set standing etiquette in elevators
• People may get in and face any direction and stand super close to you even when there is only a few passengers
• Having to bag and tag your own produce and bakery bread prior to checkout
• If you don't you don't get to buy it. They will just pile it up at the front of the checkout lane
• Tipping the bag boy/girl at grocery stores (well back when they used plastic bags and physically bagged your goods) as they are students and work for tips.
• You still might tip if you have several reusable bags that they pack for you. As we only had a single bag, we packed it up ourselves. Sorry kids no tips from us.
• Tipping of 10% may be a line item on your bill and you can added it if you choose
• There is no discernible sidewalk etiquette. They seem to walk right at you at all times of the day. They don't follow road rules on the sidewalk and walk on the right side. They walk on any side. Sometimes even 5 abreast. You don't give way. You show no signs of weakness when coming head to head with someone else. You don't look up from your phone unless you are walking around with your phone in front of your face while talking on speaker phone.
• You are supposed to register your phone on longer stays. Never found out how that worked
• Data on my phone never worked that well. Some apps worked fine, but there was definitely no browsing