Southern Exposure

Thursday, March 5

We left Los Andes and rode south to Santiago. The road quickly swelled to 4 lanes and became a toll road. I don’t think we’d been on a road this big in months. Unfortunately, unlike Peru, motorcycle do not travel free in Chile. As we got close to the city, I realized I should have read more about Santiago and learned the neighborhood names, because none of the signs simply said “El Centro” but were names of the various neighborhoods which were completely foreign to us. Fortunately, the Wanderlust GPS maps were pretty good in Chile and I was able to steer us towards the center.

After some consulting with the city map in our guide book, I found our hotel Plaza San Francisco. My mother was already in from the airport to greet us at the hotel. It was great to see her after so many months on the road and I’m sure our muddy clothes and bikes made for an interesting sight. As we pulled up to the ritzy hotel we received many looks from the hotel staff. My mother had a great surprise for us – my aunt Susan who I hadn’t seen in years would be arriving the next day from Charlotte, NC.

Inna and I carried our mountain of dirty gear up to our luxurious rooms and headed straight for the shower. It felt great to clean up with the knowledge that we’d be off the bikes for a week. We regrouped and headed across the street into the center to grab some lunch. We ate at a recommended restaurant, the Blue Jar, sitting outside on the pedestrian street catching up. After so many miles, it was a little surreal to be sitting outside at a cafe with my mother as if we’d flown into town on vacation.

We walked around the area near the Plaza de Armas, without a great idea where we were going. We went by the fish market, and then across to the “crap” market, in a shadier neighborhood. It was mid afternoon and quite hot and as we finally reached the Bella Vista neighborhood, we realized that the rules of siesta applied here and everything was closed. After admiring some impressive graffiti, we decided to take a cab back to the hotel to relax away the afternoon heat.

We took a cab back to Bella Vista for dinner, and this time it was crowded and lively. We walked around, checking out menus, and had pisco sours on the patio of a bar. It was a nice evening to have a drink outside. We moved to the restaurant Como Agua para Chocolate, and had a great dinner. It was quite the change from road food, from which I had lost about 15 pounds since the trip started. After dinner, everyone was sleepy from the travel and the wine, and we went back to our awesome king sized bed and air conditioning at the hotel.

Friday, March 6

My aunt Susan arrived in the morning and she hadn’t aged a year. We all had breakfast at the hotel’s large breakfast buffet. It was such a nice change from the miserable breakfasts of bread and juice or Fanta.

We split up for a bit as I went into town to find the Kawasaki dealer and arrange some service. My mother had arrived with a huge supply of spare parts and other luxuries for us (a replacement watch, woo!). We would have new steering bearings installed and we could replace some faulty electronics. My dad had really come through for us in rounding up all of our requests, even getting a new welding rod tube to replace the one on my bike that had shattered on some rocks. The folks at the dealer seemed reasonable, and we could drop the bikes off the next morning to get the bearings replaced and the oild changed.

We went for a walk around town towards the plazas while Inna decided she would hit the hotel gym. We had hardly exercised at all since we left Central America and I imagine our cardio performance is pretty weak these days. It was a nice walk around town before we regrouped for lunch. Inna was too tired after her workout, so she stayed in the room while we went out to eat. We did more catching up at lunch over a light vegetarian meal. It was so great to eat a big salad.

After spending far too long picking a restaurant, we met Stefano at Infante 51. Stefano was just arriving from Valparaiso, where very sadly he had crated up his bike for its return to Italy. He gave great advice on the menu and chose the wine for our meal. The food was fantastic! I had a slow cooked shoulder of lamb which was easily the best lamb I’ve ever had. It was an evening of great food and great company, which Inna and I luxuriated in. We even had some comedy as a mistranslation by our poor waiter resulted in two extra entrees being delivered mid meal. After desserts, we finally surrendered our patio table and headed back to the hotel.

Saturday, March 7

After enjoying the breakfast buffet, Inna and I had some reality to deal with and we rode off to the dealer to drop the bikes off. While we were gone, my mother and aunt Susan were taking a bus tour of Santiago. They would end up seeing much more of the city than Inna and I did.

We regrouped and walked back to the Plaza de Armas to meet Stefano and go the Museum of Pre Colombian art. This was easily the best museum we’d been to on the entire trip. It covered southern Mexico to all of western South America, arranged from north to south. The clear organization and explanations in English made it very easy to compare and contrast the various tribes and empires spread across Latin America. The collection was fantastic and well worth the visit.

After the museum, we went to the fish market to have lunch. Inna and Stefano were having the South American version of Alaskan King Crab, but better. They ordered the smallest size and it was still huge.

For appetizers they had a bowl of baby eels. Susan had shrimp and shared in the crab, which by all accounts, was excellent. My mother and I are generally not seafood lovers so it was a boring meal for us, but it was fun to watch them dismember and savor the giant crab.

After lunch, we went for a walk to Los Condes to find a particular wine shop. We took the Santiago Metro, which was nice with the exception of the lack of electronic ticket sales. We found the shop, located in the hip/yuppie neighborhood of Santiago and after some purchasing, we were done for the afternoon.

Back at the hotel we napped and wrote through the afternoon heat. Inna declared she was too tired and not hungry enough to eat dinner. The rest of us met Stefano in the plaza in Bella Vista for a pizza dinner. We were off to Valparaiso the next day, so after dinner we wished farewell to Stefano, who would be returning to Italy while we were gone. It was a sad farewell, as he was a great guy and we’d had some nice rides and good times together.