Day 31-34: Getting to Know You, Santiago!

Our new friend Sebastian and our old friends Mamut and Bernie

How do you not get lost in an urban metropolis of 6 million people? How do you find culture amongst the Starbucks, Pizza Huts and McDonalds that occupy the urban populations of every big city around the world? Will we be able to get to know Chile in a few short weeks without visiting Patagonia or small pueblos in the North and South? These were our questions as we came into central Chile from Bolivia last Thursday on the 24-hour, overnight bus. As it turns out, the answer was simple. We Couchsurf.

For those of you who haven’t heard about this wonderful organization, it is basically this: generous hosts (and usually fellow travelers with temporary roots in one place) around the world offer to host us globe-trotting travelers in their homes, free of cost, in exchange for a sharing of culture, friendship and the assumption that their guests will pass on the goodwill someday and host another traveler on their “couch” (or bed or hammock, or whatever). If you plan on going somewhere new, you can look online for free couches, scanning many profiles and learning about your hosts via their confirmed information online, and send out couch requests. If your host likes the look and sound of your request and they have the time and interest in hosting you, he/she/they will write you back and meet up with you. Tim and I started Couchsurfing on this trip and so far we have been incredibly lucky. In Cusco we found an amazing host who not only gave us lodging, a tour around his city but hooked us up with a budget trek to Machu Picchu, taught us card games and shared delicious meals with us. We decided to try our luck with Couchsurfing again in Chile and didn’t find any hosts in the North, but lucked out big time with an excellent host (and now friend for life), Sebastian, who is giving us an authentic, firsthand perspective of Chilean city life. 

On Friday, after our grueling bus ride, we arrived at the Santiago bus terminal and were assaulted by modernity! Lights, advertising, commercialism, clean, busy, bright. Overwhelming. A young man, we had still yet to meet, had given us directions to take the metro (yikes, modern public trans-p!!!) and then walk a ways to his downtown apartment. When we arrived, tired and funky feeling, we were greeted with such a warm welcome. Sebastian, a law student at the (second?) best law school in Chile who is now studying for his Bar exam, had coffee and warm showers for us, good conversation and an open invitation to treat his apartment like our own. Within minutes we felt like we had known this guy forever and we were joking, opening a bottle of Chilean wine and making plans to meet up with his friends at a Salsa bar. Sebastian took us out dancing, teaching us a few suave salsa moves and we thoroughly enjoyed dancing until dawn.

The next morning I woke up and decided to brave the supermarket. Now, keep in mind that I am not accustomed to SUPERmarkets, having shopped primarily in open air, developing-country mercados for the last two years. Walking into a supermarket in a Spanish speaking county was a little overwhelming. I walked around the store at least twice before putting anything in my basket. There were SO many brands of things and SO many things in general! Plus it didn't help that I had to work my brain to translate all the Spanish labels on things! Anyway, I did manage to find ingredients to make omelets, coffee and yogurt and granola for breakfast. After breakfast the three of us lounged around the apartment, chatting and getting to know each other, sharing music and Youtube videos and plenty of laughs. Then Sebastian invited us to meet his Dad at a rugby game in the afternoon. I don’t know much about rugby (Tim does from his time in England) but we both were able to enjoy the feeling of family-time with Sebastian and his dad outside the city, in a beautiful park, surrounded by sports lovers and a grand sense of community. 

Rugby is crazy!

Tim and Sebastian in a beautiful park in central Santiago

On Sunday morning we went out, on bikes borrowed from awesome neighbors, on a mobile tour of Santiago. We rode through the well-maintained public parks, along the river and plazas of the city and finally we met up again with Sebastian’s dad to ride up into the hills surrounding the metropolis. We had a blast (despite me huffing and puffing) riding up the bike path in the rural hillside outside Santiago, observing the health conscious Chileans running, jogging and biking and walking up the steep climbs to get to the giant Virgin statue/church at the apex. After our ride, we made tuna melts to share some "Americana food" with Sebastian and then he introduced us to his neighbors who we sat with to watch a local football game and drink some Chilean wine (I LOVE even the cheapest Chilean wine!!!!). Then, in the spirit of Couchsurfing, we decided to share some Guyanese culture with our hosts by making them a meal of curry and rice. Sebastian and his friends loved the curry and, as we ate, I got the chance to practice my Spanish with the very fast-speaking, self-proclaimed bastardized-Spanish-speaking-Chileans. It was a great night! 

Today we went with Sebastian to his home town of Viña del Mar, a little beach town 1.5 hours outside of Santiago, to spend the week with his Mama. We ate home cooked lunch(!), walked and drove around his town and heard all the stories of his childhood. We feel so included in his family, Chilean tradition and culture. It is a great feeling and we are grateful to our hosts and to Couchsurfing for making this global interaction possible. 

The monkeys made it on the ride up to the Virgin too

Biking with locals in Chile!

We found, in the giant dizzying metropolis of Santiago, a way to belong. The answer to our question, "how do we navigate around", is we make a friend and borrow bikes to tour the city as locals do on the best bike paths and routes. The answer to: "how to learn culture and history?" is to make a friend and meet his mother and amigos. Basically the answer to any of our traveler doubts and problems is to make a friend and get a firsthand perspective on their city, culture and life. We are so grateful to have had this experience, spending some time with a passionate, proud Chilean. Because of him, we have learned to love Chile, even in the hubbub of the big, urban mess.VIVA CHILE!