So our first destination in Chile was yet another beautiful city surrounded by mountains and one I have been looking forward to seeing for a very long time: Santiago. I remember ages ago watching a documentary about one of my favourite authors, Isabel Allende, as it followed her around Santiago and she spoke about why she loved it so much. The plazas, the streets, the beautiful young people and most of all the Palacio de la Moneda where Salvador Allende killed himself to avoid being taken away during the military coup of 1973. There is something about this man and this period in Chile that always fascinated me. It may be something to do with Isabel’s book “Paola” where she describes Santiago, Salvador and these times from her youth (they were family). I recommend this book to everyone, but be careful you might fall in love with Chile as much as I did!
So I was finally here, and waiting for me was my wonderful friend Pablo and his beautiful girlfriend Trini. We spent time hanging out with them and their dog Safari (the biggest dog I have ever seen in my life), and admiring Santiago’s lovely parks and Trini’s beautiful art (she’s a very talented lady and upcoming Santiago muralist.) We even decided to spend Christmas in Santiago and ended up having the most unusual but fun experience. We went out on the 24th set on having a nice romantic meal, only to discover a ghost town in Santiago with absolutely everything closed. Luckily for us there was one lonely Chinese restaurant open so we celebrated Christmas in Chile with Chinese. Amazingly the Chinese guys had Monika’s favourite Polish vodka which made all her Christmas dreams come true.
I was also impressed by how developed Santiago is. In recent years Chile has been inverting a lot into its capital and new parks and cultural centres have been constructed, making it a very different Santiago from that of Isabel. Another refreshing find for Monika is that almost all Chileans we met speak incredible English and you can even stop people in the street and presume they will know the language. For a Spanish-speaking country this is almost unheard of, and for Chile it comes in extra handy when you are speaking to one of its many extremely handsome Chilean men. Apologies to all the other Latino countries but so far Chile has the most handsome men we have seen on this continent. Oh yes I did just go there. Even my obsessive love for Mexico cant stop me from admiring the gorgeous Chileans. They are everywhere (women as well) and its reason enough to look forward to the rest of the country 🙂 Luckily for Stelios there are no cowboys here…
