I arrived in Santiago, the capital of Chile in the afternoon, and right away I felt this is the first city I’ve visited so far in Latin America that looks more European. It’s very modern, organized and clean. It has an excellent subway system, it has a lot of high rise tower buildings, many parks and many social activities. It looked like Montreal in the summer times, many people are in the streets, many street vendors and music performers on many corners.
Chile, like other countries in South America, is very rich in natural resources. I didn’t feel the country up to the level of development until I arrived to this city. It seems the development and wealth are more concentrated here than in other parts of Chile. The summer months in Chile and other countries south of the equator are reversed compare with countries like Canada or the US that are north of the equator. They do have 4 seasons here and it’s not tropical like Ecuador or Colombia, even I was told they have snow in the winter, which’s the time when it’s summer in Canada.
I like Chile especially Santiago and Valparaiso, unfortunately Chile is very expensive when compared to other countries in South America especially compared to its neighbors Bolivia and Peru. I wouldn’t recommend it for budget travelers, but you can still get lunch for almost $7 for things in nice but not fancy restaurants. I noticed there are a lot of sushi restaurants, even some street vendors who sell sushi and you can get good tasty sushi for $5. Transportation is very expensive, bus fares goes up on peak times of the day.
People are very helpful and polite, although I read online and heard from people I met on my travel or even others I met while in Chile, who said there’s a lot of racism. Of course as a traveler I didn’t feel that, and being a brown it’s easy to blend in
I stayed 5 days in Santiago and I enjoyed every minute of it, this is not the only part of Chile, it has many other places to visit further south, but two reasons discouraged me of visiting other places; first, it was the cost of traveling and staying in Chile. The second reason, is that I want to leave some other interesting places to visit when I come again to visit Chile a second time.
I want to thank Elvita who allowed me to stay in her apartment for a couple of days. It was a great help, thanks for your generosity.
