We started the day by going up San Cristobal Hill, the large hill at the back end of Bellavista. There is a hiking path up, but most go up by funicular. I have a hazy memory of the line being way too long to do it in 2018, but here the line was pretty minimal, at least when we went up. The funicular itself takes about four minutes and gives nice views, but there's a lot of trees around and the views are partially blocked because of this. No issue, because from the top iotself you get great views. There's also a giant statue of San Cristobal (unsure of his significance to Santiago) at the top where you get great views of the Western half of Santiago.
The real treat though is the long cable car down from the top of the hill ending in Pedro de Valdivia, a posh residential neighborhood. The cable car takes about 10 min, and here you get the Eastern half, the more modern side of Santiago, with its glistening office buildings and manicured homes as far as the eye can see. It is in moments like this that you really see just how well developed Santiago is.
Pedro de Valdivia is nothing fascinating, apart from some nice houses, but a quick walk towards the roaring Mapocho River, you get the sculpture garden. On the banks of the Mapocho is a long, slender park space that extends for pretty much the length of the city. It is cut into different sections, and here was a section of the sculpture garden, with about 30 different sculptures, all well dispersed in an area with minimal tree cover (in a good way). Tons of people just picnicking and lazing around. The sculptures themselves probably weren't to the level of say the sculpture park in Minneapolis, but uniformly nice all the same.
The park was also on the way towards the start of the area of the city nominally named Sanhattan - given its office buildings and the like. The main one of which being the Gran Torre - a 900 foot building that is the tallest in South America. Chile has a few additional buildings say in the 400-500 foot range, but the Gran Torre really just stands out. It is a regal shaped building, and had a nice observation floor on the 61st and 62nd floors. The trip up and down was nice, easy and gave just great views of all parts of Santiago, and the mountains further afield - though with a bit too much haze (apparently caused by the Andes) to really see deep into the Andes.
This was a tight two hours of day time prior to our lunch at La Calma, another well reputed seafood spot, this one featured on Somebody Feed Phil. Once again, the place was just well put together. Really nice plating, really great dishes and a great attention to detail. I had a ceviche of abalone and limpets which was fascinating. The ceviche broth was notably spicier than I've normally had it, and the limpets and abalone were perfectly chewy. As chewy was my main of conger with confit garlic oil, which was fantastic. It was clear that La Calma jsut does seafood really well.
After lunch, which took a while as we enjoyed a leisurely pace, we went eastward towards the Museum of Memories & Human Rights (the name is cleaner in Spanish), which is a fascinating three floor museum in a very modern building, laying out the last bit of Chile's history - the military Junta led by Augosto Pinochet, his dictatorship and Chile's revolet back into democracy. Basically its a step by step view of 17 years (1973-1990), explained in pretty fascinating detail. One floor is about the junta itself, which I had no idea but Day 0 of the operation was September 11th.
The second floor was about the darkness of the dictatorship - the terrors of the regime, life of political prisoners, etc. And the final floor about the last few years when revolt, uprising and finally democracy took over. Most of the final floor detailed the election in 1988, as for reasons I didn't gather, despite being a dictatorship they allowed an election in 1988 to basically ask the people if they wanted to keep Pinochet in power. The people voted no in a huge voting campaign where apparently 92% of the eligible voters voted.
From there we headed to Barrio Italia, which was just lovely. I remember it distinctly on my first trip, but I think I didn't fully remember just how big the area was, and just how many shops and stalls it packed into its streets. Their main drag they had made pedestrian only, and it really is just you ping ponging from side to side stepping into these little small shop collectives that have 5-8 small shops selling random stuff, from record stores to cosmetics stores, to some with handicrafts, to some selling really fancy furniture. Barrio Italia is a shoppers heaven. Also interspersed in all of this are bars and restaurants and people generally just having a great time. Just a great place to spend a weekend afternoon, as so many of the lcoals were. This is very much not tourist season in Chile, so in a way it was great to see places like this packed with locals.
So too were a bunch of locals filling the brim of Patio Bellavista where we stopped by for a couple quick half-pours at Bar Spoh. I think Patio Bellavista has expanded since our trip in 2018 - then I remember it being primarily one courtyard, while here there were at least 3-4. courtyards, one of which was packed with what seemed to be a wine festival. It's stuff like this that's makes Santiago so interesting to judge or grade out. There are not a weeks worth of tourism sites (unless you count things 1-2 hours away, from the wine valley to Valparaiso) but it is absolutely the most livable South American city.
One of the tourist things there is to do, however, is Borago. One of the Worlds Top-50 Restaurants (and spoiler alert: I think underranked...), it is the shining light of Chile's culinary scene, and it was a masterpiece of a meal. I may do a dish by dish post later, as I did for say the first time I ate at Central, or Maido, or Gaggan. It is worthy of that type of praise, probably slotting in at #4 in all time meals (behind Gaggan the original, Central and Azurmendi). Just insanely cultivated presentations of amazing Chilean ingredients. Some of the masterpieces stick with me even as I write this a day later, particularly the show-stopper final main which is just a slice of baby Patagonoan lamb that has been cooked over fire all day, which is about as perfect a few bites I've ever had.
Borago was a showstopper event, but the show did go on for a few more hours and locations, mostly though a replay of the day before. We went back to Siete Negronis, which just has a really great vibe. Their cocktails are world class, but the place is far more fun, vibey and less pretentious than you wouild think for a place of such excellence. Right in the middle, as the clock in theory hit midnight on my Birthday, we were gifted an extra hour, as Chile's Daylight Savings Time ends at midnight on April 7th, pushing it back to 11pm, April 6th.
The night finished up mostly at Espacio 93, which was less showy than the day before but still a whole lot of fun. I'll say it is edging a bit more on the hardcore techno scene than what I usually prefer, but it was quite a bit better than La Feria, even if both places have some positives. Santiago isn't reknowned for its nightlife, at least the way many other South American capitals are (particularly Buenos Aires, and of course Cartagena and Rio) but it is still quite good, dependable and fairly centrally located in buzzing Barrio Bellavista.
