8-Mar Santiago

I slept like a log for 9 hours!  We started slowly and hit the city around 11:00 a.m.  Our first stop was La Chascona, Pablo Neruda´s house in Snatiago (he had many).  We could not get tour reserved until 1:00 (in Spanish for Alexis) and 1:15 (in English). Since we had an hour to kill, we rode the tram up Cerro San Cristóbal and ran down in our flipflops.

Barrio BellaVista

Vista from Cerro San Cristóbal

Although only 40 minutes long, the tour of Pablo Neruda´s house was well worth the wait.  The house was built as a secret meeting place for Pablo and his lover Matilda.  Neruda was a charismatic eccentric. The house was filled with many ecclectic nicnacs and pieces of artwork that were either given to him or made for him.  Diego Rivera had painted one of these which was a cryptic image of Pablo and Matilda. The house was built to resemble a boat and had a canal running through it during the time it was constructed (now diverted).  It was a gathering place for many left of center artists and intellectuals.  The icing on the cake was the display of Neruda´s Nobel Peace Prize.

Pablo Neruda´s Santiago house - La Chascona

Fish mosaic in Pablo Neruda´s terrace

Plaque at La Chascona

Afterwards, we walked thru Santiago´s gawdy teeny-bopper fashion district and went back to the mercado for ceviche mixto.  It was amazing though I could not ID many of the species, or for that matter, the fish parts.

We went to 2 junky art fairs before taking a pre dinner siesta.  We had dinner in Barrio Brazil in a place called Vacas Gordas. I couldn´t resist the name of the restaurant because it sounded like my mecca, but sadly the beef did not hold a candle to the parillas in Argentina.