Like any big city, smog hangs over it like a veil. But your eye is constantly drawn to the spectacular Andes. Santiago is squeezed between them and the sea on a thin strip of land.

 

Many smoke as they walk. Many women, Chileanas, wear tight jeans with high chunky boots and almost all are very stylish with long tresses. As I am staying in the city business district, all the women and men I see are well dressed, even at the gym which visit a couple of times. There’s no crazy traffic horns or disorderly carrying on. Everyone seems polite and calm. Nearby is a building that resembles a combination of the Empire State and Chrysler building in New York, so this area is called ‘San-hattan’.

The longer I am here the more Pisco Sours I drink, and coincidentally, the better my Spanish gets; loosening the bonds of the language sections of my brain. Pisco Sour cocktails are a dangerous concoction of muscatel grape mixed with egg white and varying high degrees of alcohol percentage, originally from Peru but usurped by Chile. But they are so easy to drink and are so delish! Most are happy I’m trying my Spanish, and some are pleasantly surprised that as an Australiana I can speak and understand it. I can now order a hot chocolate with a bit of cream like a pro.

Being blonde-haired and blue-eyed, I get plenty of stares from both men and women, although there are a surprising number of foreigners of different nationalities and white Chileans. I am trying to read authors from the country in which I visit, so am reading Chilean author Isabel Allende’s book My Invented Country . In it she reveals that foreigners were welcomed to Chile both early in its history, during Franco’s regime in Spain, and also post WWII, so it is not unusual.

I am only here for a couple of days before I go to Peru, but my friend Marcia had planned for us to go skiing at a ‘local’ ski resort- it is only a hour away. Those plans fell through but we intend to visit a winery instead.