Prior to my trip to Chile, an Expedia travel video taught me that Santiago was a city of extremes. At the time I did not think much of it, until my husband reminded me of this statement during our week long stay. I discovered this could not be closer to the truth.
To put it lightly, Chile is going through a very rough time, I will not pretend that I have a full understanding as to why. What I do know, however, is that over my Thanksgiving holiday this year, I gained a little more insight of the world we live in and the struggles that another country faces.
Santiago is absolutely a city of extremes. Beautiful and ugly, rich and poor, ocean and dessert, historic and modern architecture, the list could go on and on. But what I want to focus on is the beautiful and the ugly…
We road bicycles through beautiful miles of vineyards in the Maipo Valley. Off-road to soak in desolate natural hot springs in the middle of the Andes Mountains, drank water from a crystal clear waterfall, and were invited to have a barbecue lunch with some local people who lived in the Andes Mountains. We learned from two local woman how to make their grandmothers empanadas, where we then shared a bottle of Carmenere wine, ate our fresh empanadas and talked about the struggles their country is going through. These experiences were absolutely magical, you would never guess that the evening before or your next morning, things could take a drastic turn.
We walked around a graffiti covered city done by young, angry citizens desperately trying to get their message across to their government. Nearly the entire city center is boarded up, in a failed effort to protect the storefronts, second and third floor windows are totally destroyed from people throwing bricks. Subway stations burned to the ground. Our first evening we sat in a beer garden, where a block away tear gas was being fired to break up a protest. The gas blew over, my husband and I, as well as the rest of the patrons felt its' effects. We saw piles of rubble on fire in streets. Dozens of Chilean Carabineros, special services police force, were out in full protective gear, accompanied by their armored vehicles. Each evening they tear gassed the protests to put them to bed for the night, that is until the young citizens showed up in full force again the next afternoon.
I truly pray that Chile can get back on the right track soon, clean up it's beautiful cities, and live in peace. For now, I am thankful that I spent my Thanksgiving this year gaining invaluable experiences of the world we live in. Thankful to take inspiration from the architecture buried beneath the graffiti. Thankful for new friends in far away places. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
