A LITTLE SANTIAGO
We arrived here on a Sunday after a very long day of travel. Four hours in a van to the Punta Arenas airport (leaving before dawn at 4:30 am), the usual long line for LATAM check-in, followed by a somewhat shorter security line, and then the 3 hours plus flight to Santiago. The Santiago airport is always jammed and baggage delivery is slow, but eventually we made our way to the hotel. It’s an oasis of American comfort. Not distinctly Chilean, just very comfortable. Everything works and everyone is efficient, aspects we appreciate more and more as we begin to wind up or wind down our travels.
The first order of business was our usual walk around the neighborhood. Compared to the 40 degrees we left in Patagonia, it was very bright and hot and 90 degrees! We are in a business district full of banks, tall buildings, apartments and condos. 
There is a very nice park nearby, a street with several blocks of small restaurants, plus some of the not so unusual American chains—Brooks Brothers, Le Pain Quotidienne, and Total Wine.
We noted that many of the park benches were cleverly and creatively painted with different patterns and images. Fun! And there were families with young children romping on the play equipment.
Yesterday we engaged with the subway system. The day before the CP purchased a BIP card. You select an amount and pay for it and then two people can use it for rides. One person touches the card and goes through the turnstile and then hands the card back to the second person to touch in. And it’s legal! 
The subway station was just across the street from our hotel and we rode Line 1 about six stops to the transfer station and then successfully navigated our way to the Combinacion or transfer to Line 5 which we took two more stops to Plaza de Armas.
Plaza de Armas is the main square downtown and ringed by impressive and important institutions. 
The Catholic cathedral is here, the Chilean history museum, city hall and more. We admired the thickly trucked palm trees and the beautiful purple jacaranda trees and observed all the people coming and going on this bright sunny morning. We spent some time wandering around this area just looking at city life and then returned to our hotel for lunch and some downtime out of the heat.
Later we took another walk in our area, noting a street lined with different contemporary sculptures, and then had dinner at a trendy contemporary wine bar and restaurant called KM 0, short for Kilometer Zero.
We were among the very few diners at 7:00 pm, being Americans and hungry. My salmon was covered with a mustard yellow sauce of puréed yellow sweet peppers and some shrimp and served with roast potatoes.
The Chief Penguin went for the daily special, shrimp fricassee, and was surprised to see a poached egg oozing on top of the shrimp, peas, spinach, and French fries. He ate quickly to avoid the egg! We had ordered side dishes of green beans (served cold which we didn’t expect) and French fries, not knowing what the fricasee entailed. It was good food, but not exceptional.
Note: All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).
