After my enforced overnight in Melbourne I made it to Santiago about 27 hours late, but I was still in time to attend my photography tour: a quick check-in to my accommodation and head out with the big camera in addition to my cellphone. Really the photography tour is more about finding your way around, knowing little hidden places only a local knows about, and generally getting acquainted.
I was the only person on the photo tour too, so that was an unexpected bonus! The best parts for me were the architectural details. Santiago is most photogenic up close - get more than a couple of hundred metres from a hill or a large building and it starts to disappear into the haze. I've been told that it was worse before all the buses went electric, although a vanishingly small percentage of the cars, trucks and motorcycles are electric yet, so there's a long way to go before it''ll have air that is reliably as clean as similar sized megalopolises like Shanghai.
Quite honestly: that's a shame, because the actual location is really stunning. Surrounded by mountains - in some directions the snowy peaks of the Andes, and while it is mostly flat, the parts that are not flat are very non-flat, and many of those seem to be parks, with walking paths that will take you to the summit, or other mirador.
After my photography tour the next day I was booked on a tour up into the mountains. This ended up not happening because the shiny new WhatsApp account I had created so the tour people could chat with me went into "Account Review". Not just once, but four times! I cancelled another tour later since obviously I couldn't trust WhatsApp for this kind of communication. Surely I can't be the only person on the planet who creates a WhatsApp account purely for chatting with tour operators and accommodation providers?
So instead of that tour I went to the nearby markets and wandered around before catching the metro out to Tobalaba and walking up Cerro San Cristóbal and down the other side back to Recoleta for lunch. It was a gorgeous day, though as hazy as ever, and the hill was crawling with people - to be expected in the largest outdoor space in a a city of this size. There are several cable cars, and one funicular that deliver people to various locations around the peak, but there's no way I was going to pay tourist rates to get up there when the weather was so nice and there's a perfectly serviceable route was no queue for the energetic route.
In the afternoon I caught the metro out to Los Dominicos where I managed to tangle my feet in a broken kerb and plant my face firmly into the concrete tiling... I picked myself up and dusted myself off, with a few locals coming over to offer to take me to a medical center and to supply me with tissues to staunch the bleeding. After resting for a couple of minutes I decided to walk the hill - a medical centre probably couldn't help with my loose tooth, I figure, and everything else will heal up reasonably quickly. So I carried on up Cerro Calan to watch the sun go down and the sunset line crawl up the mountains around us.
It was a perfect evening for it, and I did the loop around the summit as the last rays of the sun disappeared and the mountains turned progressively redder. There were a couple of people there setup with large astronomical lenses attached to their cameras who I think were waiting for the full moon to come up over those darkening mountains, but I didn't really feel like sticking around for that - it was getting cold, and I was sore and somewhat upset with myself for tripping on that broken kerb. At least I got some nice photos out of it. I caught the metro back to La Moneda and walked back to the apartment - no dinner, after my big lunch earlier in the day, and the tooth pain wouldn't have let me anyway.
A good night's sleep, and a late start to the day, and thankfully my knee was entirely back to normal after the previous day's shenanigans, so I think walking on it before it stiffened up probably did help. I went for a nice soft brunch, to minimise the tooth pain, and then caught the metro to "Irarrázaval" and walked throught the Barrio Italia and Parque Bustamente back to Recoleta where I saw some excellent street art on the way back to the apartment. Later I went out for an early dinner and some more walking around before heading back to the apartment for another fairly early night.
For my last full day in Santiago I had a food tour. booked. I was lucky enough to be the only customer, and there was a lot of food from all of the little stalls throughout the various markets. The guide was very entertaining and had a lot of fun banter with the people we passed. At the end of the tour I had eaten so much food I couldn't handle any more that day - in fact I couldn't handle everything from the tour itself, though I did try! Although the tour started at 0930, it continued well into the afternoon. Afterwards I visited some small museums around Plaza Armas and returned to the apartment to pay the landlord, who begged off and said he'd come later (he didn't, eventually turning up, late once more, the following morning before I headed off to the airport.
