Killing time in Santiago (3)
Trip Start
Nov 25, 2010
1
13
Trip End
Dec 07, 2010
Santiago, Chile
Monday, December 6, 2010
On Pati's recommendation, we used a car service that she was familiar with so that they could call her as we got close to the city. When they called her, she had forgotten that we arrived at 7:00 that morning, so we had to wait a bit for her to show up. The unit is clean, but could be cleaner; walking around in socks, they got pretty dirty. Although we couldn't hear noise from the other units, the street noise and the music from the functions at Cerro Santa Lucia were constant, even with the windows closed. Since the days are warm and the nights cool, you really want to have the windows open at night to cool the place down.
On our last day, Pati called to ask if we had paid for the transportation back to the airport. I knew we paid for transportation and it only made sense that we paid for a roundtrip. Come to find out, she had only charged us for one way and now that the vacation is over we need to pay for the trip back to the airport. Another issue is that we were unable to pay for the reservation in advance and had to go to an ATM around the corner for Pesos after we arrived. I would have preferred to have had all this taken care of before we left and because we had to wait, we lost out on the exchange rate.
We waited for Pati to call and let us know she was coming up, but didn't hear from her. She told us the next day that she called several times, though the phone never rang. We finally left for lunch after 1:00.
There are a couple of major department stores that we wanted to check out so we headed there after lunch. Across the street, on Avenida Bernardo O'Higgins is the Iglesia de San Francisco and the Museo Colonial. This is the oldest building in Santiago, surviving three great earthquakes and was built between 1586 and 1628. The picture of the Virgin is a statue brough to Chile on the saddle of Pedro de Valdivia, and he credited it for guiding his way and keeping the natives from attacking him.
Next door is the Museo Colonial, which includes a collection of paintings, sculptures, and furniture dating back to the colonial times.
<More pictures below>
