Coming from La Paz, which is as third-world as you can get, Santiago, Chile is nothing what we expected it to be. While not a beautiful city, its is thoroughly modern and would not be out of place in Europe or California.
Similar to Europe:
- The metro (subway) is identical to that in Paris, with the same carriages as "Les Lignes 1 et 6", ticketing system, and very similar station designs.
- The most popular vehicles are the Peugeot 206, Renault Clio and Opel Astra.
- The Autopistas (highways) use European signs and are comparable to France's Autoroutes in quality (and tolls!!!).
- While its not a terribly attractive city, walking in the streets has a distinctly European feel to it (we compare it to Berlin).
Similar to San Francisco:
- Geographically, the city is close to both the Pacific Ocean and the Andes mountains, making it excellent for wine production (whites in particular).
- The ocean, mountains, and wineries are all a 1 hour drive from the city.
- Its by far the most expensive city in South America, with the price of goods and services comparable to San Francisco.
Random thoughts:
- Que? Chilean Spanish has to be the most unintelligible version of the language out there. Lots of idioms, shortening of words, rapid speaking and mumbling. Think the combination of "New Yorker", Louisiana Bayou" and "Cockney" English.
- Since when did Samsung start making cars?
- 11 de Septiembre: We noticed Santiago has a road named "11 de Septiembre", although its not for the reason we initially thought.
Despite its long history of democracy, Chile has a vast divide between the wealthy and poor. To address this, in 1970, the people elected a Marxist socialist, Salvador Allende, as president. His goal was to improve the lives of the poorest Chileans by nationalizing certain businesses/industries and redistributing the wealth accumulated from the mining of copper. Well, a Marxist socialist running a Latin American country didn't sit too well with the US Government (especially with everything going on in Vietnam at the time). So, the US flooded the copper market, driving down the price -- which severely hurt the Chilean economy, as Allende didn't diversify the economy. As we all know, nationalized business + no wealth to distribute = no food + unhappy people protesting in the streets. So, on September 11, 1973, Army General Augusto Pinochet led a coup against the government, and claimed himself president. Pinochet, much like Stalin in Russia, greatly strengthened the country's economy, but through brutal rule, and the killing/torture of tens of thousands. Bottom line: We received very different answers when we asked locals about Pinochet. Some are thankful for his economic reforms; others can't forgive him for his brutality.
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