On 21st April we woke up and had our rental car delivered to our hotel in Mendoza. Thanks to advice from Diego, we expected a 4-5 hour drive to Santiago.
Despite a few low gear issues, our little Chevy went well and we were hooning along the mostly one lane highway at break neck speed toward the Argentine-Chilean border.
The drive was awesome. The road traces its way towards the tallest mountain in South America (Aconcagua) through amazing valleys, carved through the amazing cordillera, with the steep jagged peaks protruding atop amazingly carves ranges, sparkling in yellows, purples, reds and greens. The layers of rock are amazingly clear and the colours come from the presence of iron, copper and sulphur.
After a pitstop for supplies at the cross-road town of Uspallata, we continued down the RN-7 towards the border. After passing what we thought was the border crossing to get into Argentina, we drove for a good 15kms before we started worrying whether it was actually where we had to stop for border control into Chile … just as we contemplated turning around, the border control appeared.
We queued in the car for about 45 minutes, and almost passed through without any fuss. Mine and MIsh’s passports were stamped for entry, however when the immigration official checked Cathy’s it turned out she had not been stamped INTO Argentina at the International Airport. After an hour of back-and-forth, we were eventually allowed to pass and continued onto Santiago.
We arrived in Santiago a little puckish and tucked straight into the famous Lomito, a steaming pork sandwich, topped with Chucrut (Sauerkraut), tomato, lettuce and lots of mayo. Sealed by a great bread bun (a rarity in South America) it really was more than the sum of its part and hit the spot after the long drive.
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| Coffee, Santiago style |
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| The Lomito Completo |
Lomit's, the best Lomitos
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| Doing the accounting |
After, we walked around the Providencia area of the city where our hotel was located.
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| Sculpture |
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| The city river |
We read the menu, but surprisingly (although it as has been the case in most new countries we’ve visited) we couldn’t really understand it.
After receiving a recommendation from our waiter we settled on:
- Pinzas de Jaiba – crab claws;
- Machas a la parmesana – razor clams with parmesan;
- Sopa de Almejas – clam soup;
Needless to say the food was absolutely amazing, and, at no more than 60 bucks (bottle of wine and multiple beers included) a dead set steal!!
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| Machas! |
Our first full day in Santiago, coincided with Good Friday, so what better day to visit the central market of a city of over 7 million people right?! In general we love visiting the markets of cities, it’s a great way to chat to locals (usually they poke fun at you) and really get a feel for a culture through its food. This day we were travelling in the footsteps of Anthony Bourdain and his trip to Santiago. We were in search of the Vega Central, which was shut for repairs, and then for a feed at La Vega Chica.
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| Fish market, hectic on Good Friday |
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| Flowers, $1AUD for a dozen roses |
The central market was chockers, full of people buying fish to celebrate the death of Jesus. It was absolute chaos, but the array of seafood was fantastic. After having a quick look around, we avoided the tourist oriented restaurant and went a couple of blocks to find the Vega Chica, which we would have missed had we not asked a local shopkeeper.
Restaurants lined the interior of this small market, and while we tried our best to find Bourdain’s preferred restaurant here, we settled for one of the many, no-named venues packed full of locals. We had a great Peruvian style ceviche, pastel de choclo (corn meal, pumpkin, meat and chicken pie), Mariscal (seafood soup) and shellfish. All was amazing and most dishes were between 3-5 AUD!
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| This was only a hour after breakfast |
The ceviche had us discussing how good the food in Peru will be, fingers crossed.
Unfortunately, after leaving the market, we crossed a bridge heading back to the main road. Something was awry and Mish - there was lots of dodgy looking people around. We did not realize that Cathy was walking a little bit behind us and by the time we turned around someone had grabbed her camera out of her hands and run off. Bad times.
The weather was terrible so we only had a brief look around the central square and the main pedestrian street, Ahumada, and pretty much everything was closed for Easter. The city was more or less a ghost town outside of the markets.
We returned to Santiago for one more night after driving to the Pacific Coast and back. With the holiday weekend over, the city was buzzing. We had another great night out at Bar Liguria, sampling the best seafood the country had to offer. Amazing!
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| Dog asleep in box |
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| All the employees at this party shop were dressed as rabbits or eggs... |
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| Football dog |
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