For me, Santiago was a city of surprises. I arrived in the city crumbly with no expectations or directions. But a shower revived my soul and soon enough my mother and I were loose on the town.

As we left the comfort of our apartment we were greeted with plazas, parks, and fountains, all sharing space with street performers, urban photographers, and historical buildings. Welcomed to downtown Santiago. A city bursting at the seams with restaurants, cafés, and hotels. It is the perfect starting point of a South American journey and we were greeted with an unexpected friendliness from every local we encountered.

Founded by Pedro de Valdivia in 1541, Santiago has come a long way in the past 450 years and Santiago Centro is now just one of 32 comunas (districts)—each with its own distinct personality—that make up the city. The city rests on an inland plain, with the Andes glimmering in the distance and holds the title of the fifth largest city in South America and is home to nearly 5 million inhabitants – over a third of all Chileans.

We headed to the heart of Santiago, Plaza de Armas (the name which is replicated for basically every town square in South America), where we found competitive stressed chess matches, fresh fruit markets, lively street performers and square security guards patrolling the area on Segways with GoPro’s on their helmets?

Unfazed by the Segways and GoPro’s we flirtatiously bought fruit… Because it became clear quite quickly that basically every interaction in this country would seem flirtatious. Our white-bred conservatism were soon repressed in this hot-blooded continent…

I don’t know whether it was our drowsiness but the square seemed to get weird. As most capital cities tend to as Saturday night vibes (and drinks) kick in. Street performers turned into preachers, crazy people became more confident and Segway/GoPro armed security were required to maintain crowd control.

We did the only logical thing to do when you are still 10 time zones behind and confused by a mysterious new place. We bought wine. We bought wine for $3. We weren’t in Kansas Adelaide anymore.

The next day we were motivated. A few crazy city scenes hadn’t put us off the wonderful city of Santiago at all. Armed with camera and guidebook (and matching Northface jackets) we were ready for a walking tour. But first let me take a selfie have a coffee.

If you forget everything you read from this recount except one thing, let it be this: Don’t try and find a coffee on a Sunday morning in Santiago. It is a fruitless mission. You will fail. You will be caffeine deprived, and if you are anything like me: you will be grumpy.

Every single storefront we passed was closed. Every single one. Even Starbucks. Because Sunday mornings in Santiago are reserved for two things: Church, and – of course, hungover sleep-in’s. We were not religious nor hungover. We just needed coffee. That’s all we asked.

Finally we saw the welcoming sight of a cafe door. But guess what? The coffee machine wasn’t on yet. What sick kind of cafe opens it’s doors without turning on the coffee machine. A cafe from hell obviously.

But in the midst of a hellish morning we discovered Nescafe, the only instant coffee Chileans serve on a Sunday morning (and most of the rest of the day). We shocked the staff with our request of ‘sin sugar’ – apparently an essential ingredient of every caffeinated drink drunk by Chileans, and we proudly paid for two (kind of drinkable) polystyrene cups of happiness.

With a cup of coffee blacker than my soul I was revived and ready to hit the streets of Santiago. Thank heavens for free walking tours still operating on such a holy day of the week.

Our morning in dot points:

• Plaza de Armas, Catedral, Municipalidad, Correos
• (Santiago`s main square, Cathedral, City Hall, Post Office)
• Museo de Arte Pre-Colombino (Pre-Columbian Art Museum)
• Antiguo Congreso (Old Congress Building)
• Corte Suprema (Supreme Court)
• Palacio La Moneda (The Government House)
• Bolsa de Comercio (Santiago Stock Exchange)
• Teatro Municipal (The Opera House)
• Cerro Santa Lucía (Santa Lucía Hill)
• Barrio Lastarria (Lastarria Neighborhood)
• Museo de Bellas Artes (Museum of Fine Arts)
• Parque Forestal (Forestal Park)
• Plaza Italia (Italy Square)
• Barrio Bellavista (Bellavista Neighborhood)
• Casa de Pablo Neruda (Neruda Museum)
• Cerro San Cristóbal (San Cristóbal Hill)

…and much more!

(our dot points of discovery are courtesy of ‘Free Tours Santiago’, the awesome company that showed our jet-lagged, caffeinated selves an ‘informative and entertaining walk through the heart of Santiago!’)

Free walking tours are honestly the best thing to do when you first arrive in any major (or teeny-tiny) city and sometimes you get a particularly lovely guide and group. We were joined by an English couple fresh from Antarctica, a few young solo-backpackers who were recovering from crazy journeys from the Bolivian salt flats and many other interesting and lovely traveler (or tourists – whatever people carrying camera’s and guide books are called these days).

We trekked through the city – stopping for a quick coffee (hallelujah) and empanada. (We also learned about Santiago’s ‘Coffee with legs’ – where apparently coffee is sold to locals by the quality of their short skirts rather than the quality of their ‘short blacks’). The time flew by with the perfect mix of history, culture and humour and our guide had an infectious passion for Chile and Santiago. And as always, ‘free walking tours’ mean ‘tours for a gratuity’, which was honestly a pleasure to pay for after such an informative and enjoyable four hour discovery of Santiago.

But the walking tour highlight for me had to be when our group happened to stumble upon the set of a WW11 nazi looking film. The Japanese tourist standing next to me was very confused and between laughter I reassured him that Chile had some serious political issues going on it was definitely a film set.

Then my blessed luck ran out. It was mid-afternoon and we had been let loose from our walking-tour gang and we were buying our onwards tickets to San Pedro. We had selected our comfortable 24-hour bus ride seats (more on that later), and we were ready to hand over our 120,000 pesos I reached into my bag, unzipped my purse and had the dreaded travellers moment. It was missing. That important piece of plastic was no where to be found. My bank card was gone.

I screamed thief and started running after the pickpocket that I had been warned about… Not really. This was no criminal offence. This was my own stupidity. I – Kat Knapp – experienced traveller who once had worked as a ‘travel expert’ – had left one of my most important possessions in a seedy alleyway ATM. I deleted my blog, deactivated Facebook, dug into a whole of shame and was never seen again.

Well actually I sat on a metro on the verge of tears for half an hour wondering how much jewellery someone could use my bank card to buy in three hours.

Apparently none. Either the nearest jewellery shop was over 3-hours away from the ATM or I was an extremely ‘blessed’ tourist. It must be some holy day miracle.

I rang my bank, admitted my stupidity and cancelled the card. 1 card down on day one. It could be worse. Much worse. Because I would have needed the hole to dig into if someone had decided to ‘treat themselves’ to a shiny new 24 carat piece.

My Mum is not the calmest person in the world and if you were wondering what she was up to at this point I will relive your curiosity. She was armed with an emergency stress relief. Wine.

The day was saved and I managed to work up the courage to face Santiago again. This time overly conscious of my every possession. Especially my last remaining piece of plastic. We decided to visit the Museum of Human Rights – a gloomy, yet interesting-sounding Museum only a few metro stops away. I don’t know whether it was bad directions from Lonely Planet, or my own lack-of-ability-to-do-anything-today, but I couldn’t find it at all. So as the closing time of the museum passed, we headed back to the city centre where maps worked and my brain was slightly more useful.

We revisited the wonderful Cerro Santa Lucía, which was conveniently just around the corner from our apartment. Apparently after church is finished the entire population head here to passionately kiss, embrace and fondle their significant (or maybe not-so-significant) other…

In the words of my mother ‘don’t these people have homes!?’ Because ladies and gentlemen, these weren’t the typical kissy teenagers you usually see on the street – these were fully grown functioning adults, sharing their love with the world.

It was all very romantic, kind of confronting and not completely glamorous. But it was very passionate. And if South America has shown me anything – it has shown me passion. Usually too close to the footpath…

As we made our way to the top of the hill we started to climb the most precarious stairs up to the highest lookout point. Thankfully there were handrails – Santiago was obviously very concerned about peoples safety. Unfortunately someone had decided to plant cactus’ alongside the handrails. Obviously the gardeners were either not concerned with safety or had a sick sense of humour.

After admiring the vast, snow-capped mountain surrounded metropolitan view we headed back down to town. The city was much more alive now and even cafes had opened their doors to the caffeine-deprived.

It was hard to recognise with everyone around but the creepy, deserted, ATM street that I had visited earlier was now buzzing and I couldn’t resist. I had to have a shot at finding my bank card.

I had convinced myself of many excuses now – the ATM hadn’t given the card back, aliens had abducted me and stolen my bank card… But do you want to truth? I had forgotten the card and someone had turned it into the car-park office next to the machine.

There it was. That shiny piece of plastic had not been taken by local or alien… A wonderful person had simply seen a lost card and did their best to make sure it returned to a happy home.

What a wonderful experience of stupidity. I was completely ‘blessed’ and I might even have to start going to church on Sundays.

Our last day in Santiago was coming to an end. It had been a rough start to the beginning of our trip but the incredible kindness and beauty that we discovered in every corner of the city left us with a wonderful feeling of Chile’s capital.

I have never done a walking tour I didn’t enjoy and ‘Free Tours Santiago’ was no exception. This wonderful company offer an awesome overview of the city and here’s what you need to know:
Monday to Sunday at 10 am & 3 pm

No booking is needed. Just show up!

The tour lasts approx. 4 hours

Meeting point: Catedral (metro station Plaza de Armas, line 5)

Just look for our guides wearing red FREE TOUR T-shirt.

Tel.: (+56 9) 9236 8789

freetoursantiago@hotmail.com 

www.freetoursantiago.cl

(The company also offers tours in Portuguese and Spanish – check out their website/Facebook for info)