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I’ve been a little remiss in blogging these last two months. Well, not a little. I completely ignored my blog. My reason was a good one, to me at least. I was finishing the editing on my debut novel. For good or bad, I finished my third pass earlier this week. The manuscript is now in the hands of my developmental editor. We’ll see how that goes, but it will be two months before I get feedback. So until then, it’s blogging. And working out the plotting for my next novel.
But in the meantime, let me indulge in talking about my travels. I spent the first couple of weeks of February in Santiago. This was my first time in the city. My first time south of the equator, actually. I found two impressions stuck with me long after I left the city.
One is a feeling I’ve known about for decades. Mountains are awesome. The other is one that struck me, especially the longer I stayed. Santiago is a lot like Los Angeles.
I love mountains. Utterly in awe of them. Love their majesty. Love how they rise from nothing to dominate their surroundings. Love how they build on each other to create an imposing physical barrier. I can stand and take in mountains for hours and not get bored.
Santiago nestles right up against the Andes. If you look directly to the east, the mountains are right there. These are just the foothills of the Andes, but the mountains that overlook Santiago crack 3,000m. And they are less than a twenty-minute drive from where we were staying.
If you’re willing to do a bit of traveling, you can do even better. A simple drive from Santiago is Cerro Aconcaqua Sur. It is the tallest mountain in the southern hemisphere and the tallest mountain in the Americas. It rises to almost 7,000m and sits just over the Chile/Argentina border, a little north of the road between Portillo and Mendoza.
The Los Angeles reference is a little harder to describe. As I was heading from the airport into Las Condes, the resemblance the city had to Los Angeles struck me hard. I lived in L.A. for thirteen years, so I’m relatively familiar with the weather, the neighborhoods, and the freeways. Santiago had a very ‘L.A.’ feel to me. The area surrounding the freeway was arid. Brown patches of dirt surrounded the buildings. The homes themselves were a little ramshackle. Graffiti covered the buildings and freeway walls.
As you get towards the financial district and then on into Las Condes, the distinction became obvious. Newer residences. High rises. Green space that was, you know, green. By the time we got into Las Condes proper, it was a different world.
People have suggested Las Condes is the Beverly Hills of Santiago. I don’t disagree with that assessment. Our Airbnb was a condo in the heart of Las Condes, overlooking Parque Araucano. Araucano is a gorgeous city park, stretching about a kilometer long, filled with features that make people want to visit. Tennis courts, basketball courts, beach volleyball, a bike-cross track, a skate park, and enough green space to have soccer games, Frisbee toss, outdoor yoga take place simultaneously. It was truly stunning to see. The number of people who took advantage of what the park offered, from sunup to sundown, amazed me.
But the green resonated with me. Santiago’s weather in summer mimics Los Angeles. For the time we were there, which was about two weeks, there was no rain. None. Heck, most days I couldn’t find a cloud in the sky. Fantastic weather for a tourist. Not so much if you hope to have greenery. Yet Parque Araucano was lush. The effort and resources that the city put into ensuring that space stayed the way were obvious.
When you compare Las Condes to other parts of the city, I suspect the allocated resources just aren’t there. I spent time with some friends who are residents of Santiago. They suggested I hadn’t been only seeing the ‘good’ parts of the city. An opinion confirmed by the tour guide who took us up to Laguana del Inca.
This too makes it much like L.A. There are more than a couple of neighborhoods in that city I wouldn’t visit as a resident, much less a tourist.
Putting all that aside, we enjoyed our time in Santiago. My partner had easy access to mountain trails where she could train. I’ll cover some of her adventures in a separate post. There was plenty of shopping and restaurants close by. The time spent there made a great start to my traveling adventure. And I can see us visiting again, especially when you consider it’s warm and sunny there at a time when Canada is cold and snowy.