ODO: 338,492
We spend another week in the same place. We’re never done this before, stayed put for so long. Luckily we have some projects to get after:
- We get the sewing machine out again and revamp our mini stove storage, making it significantly easier to access. Which makes baking easier!
- We add more outlets! All of our 12v outlets are upstairs, so having a few downstairs is a fun luxury.
- We update the Internet power supply so our starlink draws significantly less power. Berne spends a few hours rewiring things, and figures out how to mount everything. We’ve been carrying these parts around since we left, so it felt great to complete this task.
- We wire up the replacement mood lights. We shorted out two when we had the camper welded back together, way back in Belize. Now we have soft outdoor lighting on all sides of the camper again!
After all these projects, and a couple lazy days, it’s Santiago exploration time. Being so settled in, it takes us until late afternoon to pack up. Downtown Santiago sits on top of an underground maze of freeways, and we get a little lost on our way to the hotel. The air is thick with smog, like forest fire season thick. The short walk to dinner is a bit of a struggle with the air quality. We find a cozy ramen place that makes fantastic drinks. Solid start to the weekend.
There is a Pre-Columbian museum here, so obviously we have to go. It is mostly statues and carvings with a smidge of textiles throw in for balance. More than a couple of the statues have a very Asian or Egyptian feel to them. Something we’ve noticed at several of the larger archeological sites we’ve visited on our travels. No one will convince KoKo that ancient cultures didn’t have contact with each other, the art doesn’t lie.
We spend the rest of the day on a self guided walking tour of Santiago. Plaza de Armas is a main square with a beautiful church and the museum of natural History (we don’t go), which is the location of one of the five Moai from Rapa Nui that aren’t on the island. The central market seems to be almost entirely seafood, which smells atrocious. Lots of vendors try to get us into their restaurants.
Across the river we wandered through a shopping district so good it gets added to our “places to come back to” map. KoKo is very excited to buy two new sweaters (things we do NOT have room for), one of which is her cheap lama tourist sweater she has been searching for since Peru.
After traversing what feels like the entire city, it’s time for an afternoon relax. Which is followed by massages in the hotel spa. These are the best Latin America massages we’ve had. Once we get de-oiled (Latin American uses an aggressive amount of massage oil), we find a nice steakhouse within walking distance to finish out our evening.
The hotel gym has been the busiest hotel gym in the history of hotel gyms every morning, and today is no exception. It turns out there are several bands staying in the hotel, and they are into their fitness also. Today’s plan is more walking, with a focus on the street art and learning to use our camera. Berne finds us a few neighborhoods full of art and we get started. The first one starts sketchy, there are a group of hoodlums drinking 40s in the park at lunch time. There is SO MUCH ART. Every building has at least one picture, if not an entire mural. And all of them art, not graffiti. We walk for hours exploring it all, only stopping once for some quick Thai food. In our final neighborhood a nice man runs up to us and says we need to put the camera away. Apparently we found an actual bad neighborhood. He warns us people will steal our camera. Back into the backpack it goes, and we decide we’ve explored enough. We grab some dinner to go and Uber back to the safety of our hotel.
The hotel gym is finally quiet, hotel breakfast is tasty, and we enjoy our 4pm late check out perk. There is one serious errand on our list today: check out storage solutions at the container store. Someone brought to Berne’s attention that we could be more organized (it was not KoKo), so we’re giving it a shot. There is a fancy container store inside a secured parking lot that we spend the late afternoon in, trying out different sized containers. This is a process since we unpack the cab to make sure they will fit. Once we get the truck back together, we grab some groceries and dinner. Then it’s back up the hill to the dirt lot above the smog.
Back to quiet lazy work days. We install our new storage containers, which cleans up the back seat. Now we need to build or find something that fits in the dead space between the boxes…We also book cheap flights to Rapa Nui aka Easter Island! The only airport that files there is Santiago, and we finally found a good deal! This has been on KoKo’s bucket list for at least 15 years, so time to check it off. The rest of the day is spent looking for hotels and researching what to see and where to eat when we get to the island. Fingers crossed it lives up to the hype.
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