Arriving In Santiago

After Cora and Florian drive away, and there were tears at the departure, we found ourselves looking for camping near Santiago, the capital of Chile. 

I know Santiago is described as huge and should be an intimidating prospect for a man in a van, but I find traffic in Chile makes driving quite simple in that everyone sticks to their lanes, use turn signals and for the most part are patient and courteous. I haven’t yet driven in rush hour but I have been a passenger in an Uber and it seemed slow yet bearable. In this immensely long narrow country Santiago is less than a hundred road miles from the border with Argentina in the Andes at Paso de Los Libertadores, the main artery of road communication and commerce with Argentina.  

And to give you an idea we are just about as far from Puerto Montt, the end of the PanAmerican Highway in Chile as Key West is from Hilton Head Island where Webb Chiles lives. We are far enough south that days are appreciably longer with daylight making itself felt around 6:30 and darkness closing in around 8:30. The air is cool and without the sun it’s for right cold so early starts are a trial for the tropical crew of GANNET2 but the long twilight makes up for that. 

There is a European flavor to life in Chile seen from the road. Above we see a restaurant over the PanAmerican Highway very much in the style of freeway eateries in Italy. The price of regular gasoline in the photo translates to $1:35 to the liter, or multiplied by 3.78 equals $5:10 to the gallon. Diesel is around four bucks a gallon. 

We had tons of laundry to do so we dropped off our clothes at a laundry near our planned campground and I walked Rusty while Layne found a pharmacy to sell her some take and gauze to continue cleaning her leg wound. She sends a photo to the surgeon every time it’s cleaned and he is pleased with progress as the hole fills in. 

We stopped for lunch at a neighborhood cafe for lunch whose menu offered as you can see “ass” for lunch. Call me fearful but it didn’t sound appetizing though I later learned that it means an “ace” hot dog, or one with all the fixings. Delicious my ass. 

Rusty is doing really well with local dogs who come up and say hello, standing his ground and not being fearful. There are street dogs in Chile and even though they lack homes they are fed and lounge around looking plump if not loved. 

I ordered a chorrillana, meat including hot dog to my surprise, fries and an egg but we had a to go box for left overs. Layne had an empanada which in Chile comes in two flavors usually, cheese or meat and the meat involved ground beef, onion, half a boiled egg and a black olive and they call it “pino” which in Mexico means pine tree but here means a meat pie. Go figure. 

Our campground was lovely with a cold swimming pool which I enjoyed on the hot afternoon and which I followed with a hot shower. Then an English couple showed up in a camper with two aggressive dogs. They came hunting Rusty every time he got out of the van and we had to be on guard to not let them close as the black dog was vicious. It was exhausting and we decided to leave after one night. 

We washed our rugs and seat covers at the campground and I took an Uber to get our clothes and Rusty retreated to his bed out of fear of being ambushed. 

One other oddity about Chile is the widespread, almost universal use of credit cards. Everyone takes them, even toll booths on the freeway. This is a modern country and I enjoy it.  I think there is a lot of interesting stuff to enjoy between here and the end of the continent far south of Puerto Montt.

But first we have a friend to meet and Santiago to explore for a couple of days.