Over the past few days I have been trying to get a few tours nailed down as well as see a few museums around town. One cycling-the-vineyards tour I was interested in disclosed that they wanted $200 for a six hour tour. Yikes! Between the cost and them wanting to focus more on wine tasting that cycling, I decided to give that one a miss.
The museums here are not huge, collection-wise, but they are in beautiful big old buildings and either free or dirt cheap. So far I have visited the Chilean National Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Contemporary Art (which are actually physically connected, but not for visitors), and the National Historical Mueum. While in the Fine Arts Museum, I dropped into the cafe, only to find the guy behind the counter speaking fluent English and telling me he spent a year in Australia on a work exchange as a dishwasher – partly in Fremantle. He said Chile was the only Latin American country to have a work exchange program with the British Empire because “Margaret Thatcher and Augusto Pinochet were buddies.” I said “that’s disturbing” and he said they were because Chile was an ally of the U.K. During the Falklands War.
After visiting the Museum of Fine Arts, I worked my way down to the famous Central Market, which predominantly selling fresh fish, to find a restaurant for lunch. We were all given a card by our walking-tour guide a few days ago that was supposed to be good for some sort of discount at a specific restaurant there, but I couldn’t remember exactly what the deal was for. When I eventually found the restaurant (there are lots of them), I went inside and got a table and asked for a menu. While most of the other restaurants were busy hustling in the corridors of the market for business, most of the staff in this restaurant were inside, glued to watching a Chilean comedy channel on the TV. The discount I received, as it turned out, was for a free Pisco Sour drink – Chile’s national drink. I had a sip of one the other day and could immediately recognise the high alcohol content while appreciating the refreshing flavour. It was very tasty, but certainly challenging to get finish off with with my lunch.
Eating in Chile has proven to be somewhat of a challenge for me. There are a few problems: One is that there are rarely English translations on the menus, which make it very difficult to decipher what you are ordering. Fast food places seem to be easier to deal with because you can point at pictures, but fast food is something I try to steer clear of as much as possible.
The other problem is that most meals seem to be very heavy on meat and encompass hardly any vegetables. Just last night I went to a local Chinese restaurant thinking I was going to get something healthier. After finally deciphering Peking Chicken from the menu, I was brought out a tray of enough chicken meat to fill two chickens, and maybe a few spring onions thrown in for garnish. It was just pure meat that I could not finish.
Curiously around town, there are quite a few hot dog restaurants. Very odd. Not sure I would trust South American hotdogs, let along North American hot dogs. They are obviously popular enough to support the endless stores selling them!
Also in the past few days I’ve managed to move down the street a few blocks from my old featureless guesthouse to my own swish private apartment – with only a $4 difference in price! What a difference $4 makes. I went from a small room in a noisy backpackers with shared bathroom down the hall, no wifi (except for two floors down in the lobby), with a TV of Spanish only stations missing a remote – to a full furnished quiet apartment with full bath, full kitchen, queen sized bed, hundreds of cable TV stations including some in English, and security swipe card access to get in and out of the building. There are also laundry facilities downstairs. And supposedly there is a pool, but I have not been able to find it yet. Might be too cold to go swimming, anyway.
