Zoo Station

In a pattern that we’ve decided to follow for the rest of our stay in Santiago, we didn’t set an alarm again last night. We’re forgoing the free breakfast every day by doing so, but who needs food and drink if it means an extra hour in bed every day. And by this stage of the trip, the extra hour is more valuable than gold to us and lie-ins on this trip have been rarer than Rockinghorse faeces.

Despite this, though, we were woken up by the housekeeping staff making as much noise as possible outside; this may be entirely innocent on their part but we suspect it may be that they don’t want to wait until afternoon to clean our rooms. Well, tough! We left the room at 1pm anyway!!

There are two features that absolutely dominate the skyline in Santiago. One of these is the Andes Mountains. The other is San Cristobel hill. One of these would involve finding a bus, and spending hours winding up narrow mountain ledges to get to. The other is a five minute walk and a funicular ride away. Guess which one we did!

You’re right! We did the bus and winding up narrow mountain ledges! Oh, no. Hang on. We couldn’t be arsed with that, so took the easy option and went up San Cristobel Hill!

To get to the funicular we had to walk through, what the owner of the hostel described as, the “bohemian” area of the city. Now, usually this means a shabby area of town dressed up by a few “character” bars, and the street in Santiago was no exception to this.

Not entirely unpleasant, it did have a few cheap bars and restaurants, but nothing to write home about to be honest (so why am I doing just that I wonder!).

In no time at all we reached a small park at the end of the street and the foot of San Cristobel hill, and found the funicular.

Our original intention had been to just go to the Madonna statue at the top of the hill, take in the view, and then head back down again. But, when we went to purchase our tickets, we realised there was Santiago Zoo half way up the hill and that it would only cost another 2000 pesos each (around £2) to go in. So, spotting an easy and cheap way to pass some time, we got tickets for that as well, got in the funicular,

and headed up to Zoo Station.

Our first problem on getting out of the funicular was finding our tickets. In a prime example of the absent mindedness that is assailing me throughout this trip, I put the tickets “somewhere safe” when we had bought them. The problem with putting things “somewhere safe” is that I can never remember where “somewhere safe” actually is! After five minutes of searching through my pockets, with the woman on the entrance kiosk making lots of helpful suggestions in Spanish, I eventually found them tucked underneath my camcorder in the bottom of my bag! Don’t know how they ended up there, but at least they’d been somewhere safe!

Santiago Zoo was the type of zoo where the animals were pacing up and down relentlessly in their pens due to lack of space, but was generally a much more modern and pleasant experience overall than say, Beijing Zoo. It had it’s usual complement of Lions,

and Tigers,

and Llamas! (there was a bear but it was extremely camera shy! Oh My!)

We managed to pass a couple of hours there, and it was quite good value for money. The only downside was that it was built on a hill, the station was at the top, so we had to walk right down to the bottom of the hill again to see everything, only to have to walk all the way back again! Not the best design in the world! And reaching the kiosk at the exit to the funicular, we couldn’t work out how to get out through the turnstiles! Again, the very same woman who helped us find our tickets had to help us get out! I don’t know what the Spanish is for “stupid bloody tourists”, but I’m sure if we’d have listened carefully enough we would have learned!

So, the funicular arrived and we continued up the hill, the vast expanse of Santiago becoming more apparent the higher we ascended.

And on reaching the top, and getting out onto the viewing area outside the funicular exit, just how big an expanse this was plain to see.

We knew that Santiago was a densely populated place; it has over seven million inhabitants and we witnessed the population density first hand in the shopping areas yesterday. But what I think took us by surprise was just how sprawling the city is. From the top of the funicular, the valley underneath the Andes that Santiago is built on was just a mass of buildings as far as the horizon.

And what made the view of the city even more spectacular from here was the backdrop of the Andes.

There are some pretty large buildings in Santiago; we’ve seen them from the ground level. But everything, even the tallest skyscraper in the city, was dwarfed by the extreme height and majesty of the Andes.

It left you with a feeling that no matter how dense and sprawling the city was, it was just an insignificant, impermanent, transient feature on the landscape. The area felt like it belonged to the Andes; that the Andes were here long before the city existed and would be here long after it vanished. I don’t think, in my life, I’ve ever been so in awe of nature before this moment.

From one, naturally created, religious experience, we then experienced a man-made one. To head to the Madonna statue at the peak of the hill, you have to climb a series of steps, which cuts right through an open air church.

We sat on one of the pews/ benches to rest and take in the views. Religious music was playing through loud speakers as we gazed down towards the altar, the mass of Santiago and the Andes dominating the view behind this.

The combination of the music and views created an ethereal quality to the experience; just as the Hindu music in Batu Caves in Malaysia had indelibly imprinted the day onto my conscience, the Catholic music here just seemed like the perfect soundtrack to the whole place.

We could have happily sat here for hours, feeling more serene by the minute. However, we hadn’t come this far up the hill without reaching the top, so on we went.

And we finally reached the 22 metre high statue of the Madonna,

climbed the last steps to the foot of the statue and paused to admire yet more astounding scenery.

We sat in front of the main entrance; shortly afterwards, after two people stepped over us and knelt in front of this, we realised it was a shrine to Pope John Paul II so decided to move away before we antagonised anyone!

Heading back down to the funicular station, we passed a small chapel on our way,

so decided to pop in. Although a simple affair, it had the most stunning, understated carvings on the walls; the first impression was that they were just paintings but, when you approached them, it became apparent that the figures were actually carved out of the walls of the chapel and the skill involved in doing this was immense.

We reached the level of the funicular station, and took a couple more photos of the scenery

and the latest in the series of “joint photos”; having reviewed the collection of these we have from this trip, there is no doubt that madness has set in at some stage as I seem to look more wild-eyed in each photo we take! And while Mandy looks better and healthier in each one, I look rougher and rougher (and more like Obi-Wan-Kenobi according to Mandy)! For example, contrast the first “joint” photo we took on the Great Wall Of China five months ago

with the latest offering!!

Round The World travelling – should be a health warning on it!

And then it was back down the funicular,

past the ubiquitous sight in Santiago of dogs sleeping in the sunshine,

(we let them lie!), avoided giving begging students money by my fluent Spanish phrase “no tengo dinero”, and then headed back to the hostel.

Later that night, in one of the common areas in the hostel, a guy from Mexico said something to us in Spanish which we didn’t understand. When we explained we didn’t know what he was saying, he came out with the extremely anal comment of “How do expect to manage in South America if you don’t speak Spanish. You’re lucky everyone speaks English”. Not having a witty comment to retort, or a blunt instrument to thrust in his direction, we let it lie (as we did the other dogs!). But it slowly irritated us later the more we thought about it.

We don’t speak Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Malay, Polynesian, and have a little Spanish (enough to get around with). Does this mean that we shouldn’t have visited China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Polynesia, or South America?

Or does it mean the guy was just an arrogant moron?

I’ll let you decide!!!

But it bloody annoyed us immensely! And for the record, nobody except the owner of the hostel has spoken to us in English. And we’ve been here three days now.