Hiking up Cerro San Cristobal, some dogs and a fire!

Here's our next blog post, a bit of a mixed bag but hopefully entertaining anyway! 

It's been all drama at Struan's school this last week, with a student breathlessly charging into the classroom one evening to announce that there were riots close to the school! There seem to be demonstrations and protests here almost every other day, we weren't sure what this was about but they don't usually turn violent. The following evening there was a massive fire in a building across the street, the Ecuadorian School. This news video has some good footage - this was literally across the road from Struan's school, while he was trying to teach... The bomberos were out in force - what a good name for firemen!

After we posted a little while ago about dogs in coats, we've been trying to find some more good dog pics. It's getting warmer here, so there are less dogs in coats, but we had to show this beauty:

Ahem

The other comedy dog behaviour here is just sleeping anywhere, usually in the middle of the pavement:

sausages...zzzzz...

You go there, I'll go here

In the middle of a crossroads in Bellavista!

This last one just plonked himself down in the middle of the road as we were walking along. He stayed like this while this white car went past, then as another one came along he looked up as if to say "seriously, I'm taking a nap".

This weekend we hiked up Cerro San Cristobal, the big urban hill/park in Santiago. We've been up on the funicular already, but that goes pretty much straight to the top so we wanted to see the way up and explore a bit. Firstly a picture of the Cerro from the roof of our apartment building:

Spring is on the way - you can just see the city poking through the trees

Hillside and the city

This one and the one below are contrasts - the smog over the city makes the sky look washed out and grey...

...facing up the hill, this is the actual deep blue colour of the Chilean sky

Struan with some flora

View looking east from Cerro San Cristobal

Anna and los Andes

Heading back down on the funicular

Once we got back down into the city we rewarded ourselves with coffee and sandwiches at another great cafe we found:

Anna outside Cafe Laboatoria

This cafe is just round the corner from our apartment, here's the aerial view of the little square that this cafe is in, taken from the roof of our apartment building:

View of the little plaza from our apartment building

So while we were down there we thought we'd take the opposite picture:

The tall building in the background is our apartment building!

chao!

Skiing in Los Andes and Chilean Miners Alive!

Here's our next post!

We went skiing in Los Andes on sunday with a group of people from our programme. Only Scott came along from the group that we started with, but we also met some new Americans who have arrived about a month before us and are great fun and, some of whom, also live in the building opposite us. So a minibus picked us up at about 8am from our meeting point and took us up to the resort - it's only just over an hour and a half drive!

The way up - spring is on the way so it's very green in the foothills

The resort we visited was El Colorado, one of three connected resorts all very close to Santiago - only 39km from the city.

Looks like something from Yogi Bear, with added "wife-beater"

We both chose to ski, Anna has skiied before, Struan has both skiied and snowboarded fairly regularly a few years ago but recalls ski-lifts being considerably more challenging for the gentleman 'boarder. He was though soon reminded of one of the advantages of boarding - soft boots - (rented) ski boots are sooo uncomfortable.

Looking away from the slopes - not much snow down here, but a good view of los Andes in the background

Full frontal

Looking towards the slopes

We've posted some of our photos on here, we didn't get as many as we'd have liked - various reasons, being ill, worried about falling on the camera, remembering how to stuff your feet into tight hard plastic prisons etc - but the thing that struck us is the colour of the sky. Up here we were well out of the Santiago smog so there's some fantastic blue tones here. We'll get more when the season starts up again.

Apres-ski

The Chilean hole in the ozone layer?!

Awesome view up on the slopes under the chair lifts

Anna on skis - censorship has been imposed on pics described as Anna lying next to skis

It was incredible to get up into the mountains, Chile has some amazing landscapes. We heard recently that Peter Jackson originally wanted to film Lord of the Rings in Chile but apparently couldn't agree commercial terms with the government (New Zealand spotted the likely tourism boost, allegedly Chile didn't and wanted cash up front...).

To end a great day, a couple of pics of the sky on the way down:

Los Andes as the sun starts to set

You may have seen in the news that a group of Chilean miners trapped underground have been found alive, and rescue efforts are underway to get them back to the surface: 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/23/trapped-miners-alive-chile

This news (that they were trapped) broke originally the day after we arrived in Chile - and the contact was made with them when we were skiing, so on the way back through Santiago our bus drove past hundreds of Chileans out celebrating. It wasn't easy to get photos as it was almost dark and we were in a moving bus, but here's a happy guy wearing his Chile flag superhero stylee:

Dark but kind of a cool picture anyway

After all that excitement here's Struan on the way home at Emporio La Rosa a block away from our apartment enjoying Dulce de Leche and pistachio ice cream:

Apres-ski ice-cream

We've been to this ice-cream parlour a few times now - really good stuff - if you visit you have to try chocolate and pepper - yum! On this occasion we had our first Chilena thinks she's French* moment - okay it's not pronounced "dulchay" here, it's "dulsay", we get it, but seriously what else in your fridge could we be referring to? 


* No more than the usual amount of genial offence intended to the French - it is of course well known that French people in France refuse to entertain pidgin french and insist on adopting a stance of furious correction or feigned ignorance. The vast majority of Chileans aren't like this at all, and are willing to have a go even when faced with the most rudimentary attempts at Spanish**.

** Resulting in moments like last night when Struan, discussing with a janitor why his classroom wasn't unlocked, was told this was because he had to go to the teacher's "reunion" instead - to which he replied that he had only been working at the school for a week so had no-one to be reunited with. After a series of further misunderstandings dictionary was checked and "reunion" means meeting in spanish. Still, everyone laughed it off.

Finally, a pic of a Santiago police car, why? Why not more like, they're always outside our building and they're a good solid british racing green. 

Barrio Bellas Artes

In this post we thought we'd show some pictures of our new 'hood - Barrio Bellas Artes. This is an area of Santiago Centro, on the cusp of downtown Santiago, centred around the small urban park that we mentioned previously - Cerro Santa Lucia. The adjoining barrio is Barrio Lastarria, on the other side of the Cerro. These are mentioned together in Lonely Planet as:

Home to three of the city's best museums, these dinky neighbourhoods near Cerro Santa Lucia are Santiago's twin hubs of hip... the real centre of Santiago cafe culture is over at Barrio Bellas Artes.

Bellas Artes takes its name from el Museo Bellas Artes - the Museum of Fine Arts:

Museo Bellas Artes

In case you're still unsure

Facing away from the museum - a hazy view of Cerro San Cristobal, can't quite make out the huge white Madonna

Academia Bellas Artes

The Museum is about two blocks from our apartment, we haven't been inside yet, but we have wandered up and down parts of the slim park that runs through a large chunk of the city along the Rio Mapocho, the Parque Forestal:

It's not a forest but it does have trees

This isn't even remotely comparable to Central Park NYC but it is basically a place for Santaguinos to walk dogs, go running etc so it's great to have it nearby. We've tried to give an idea of how it looks in the photos below - like Chile, its long and thin:

One way...

...and the other

 So back into the street grid, the best place to start is the Metro station. The sign with three red diamond shapes means there's a metro stop nearby - Santiago has a great metro/ tube system which we both use to get back from our campuses. It's clean and fast, but a little overcrowded at rush hours - still that's two out of three better than London...

Mural!

Close to the Metro station is the ExpressGalaxy Market where we've been getting snacks on the way back from school in the evenings. It seems to be a family run operation, and we haven't yet seen it closed. They sell amazing fresh empanadas and pizza - their empanadas are usually ham and cheese with tomato, which we hadn't seen before. We went in during the day once this week and the old boy who is usually serving at night was asleep in an armchair next to the storeroom at the back - but we didn't have our camera!

Not very express, and certainly nothing to do with the galaxy, market

This "express galaxy" thing appears in slightly different ways in the names of mini-markets all over el Centro, it must be code for something but we don't know what. Here's a cool photo taken from calle Mac-Iver, showing some new Santiago mixed with some old: 

Beautiful old lamp-post, concrete crud, tree, and shiny skyscraper - Santiago in one

This building is a few doors from our apartment building, it's not as old as it looks (about 1800) but, along with the one below of the police station, it's fairly indicative of the older architecture in Bellas Artes before you hit downtown:

Carabineros de Chile - the police station almost opposite our building

Our street is called Santo Domingo, the city is laid out largely on a grid system, and some streets run along much of the length of the city from west to east - but change in character hugely along the way. Navigating is basically like New York City - what you're trying to find is defined by a block named after its intersecting streets:

Santo Domingo y Mac-Iver

On to another street just across from the metro station - Mosqueto:

This is a great little street which has mainly trees and coffee shops - we've been a couple of times to a coffee shop down here that we mentioned before :

calle Mosequeto

Cafe Flores Mosqueto - good coffee great cake!

While we're on coffee shops near Bellas Artes metro - the outside of Cafe Bellas Artes Soho

There's also a really good cafe a block further up on our road called La Pausa - pause. No pics unfortunately but we have to mention it as we ate there a few days ago and tried to pay by credit card but the machine was broken. The people who run all the coffee shops are so chilled out - the guy in this one just said it would be fine if we came back later and paid him once we had the cash, hero. 

The neighbouring barrio is Barrio Lastarria, on the other side of Cerro Santa Lucia:

Steps to Cerro Santa Lucia

Lastarria is beautiful, with lots of restaurants and cafes, and an arts cinema, so here's some pics, all within just over 5 mins walk from our apartment:

can't resist... if Cousin It was a building

So there's a quick tour of our 'hood, and the neighbouring 'hood. We'll finish with some pics of our lunch this week at La Vega, which is going to be a regular for us as it's amazing food for very little money, as you'd hope for in a food market that hasn't been touristified: 

The Aunty Ruth - all sorts of good stuff to eat

You can even shop while you eat, we bought two kitchen sponges from an old buffer wandering between the tables with a bag of them. A load of fruit and veg cost us about £3!

Anna shortly before a paila marina

Some other diners

chao!