February 8, 2023
Nearly one third of Chile’s total population lives in its capital of Santiago, which has been marked by political unrest since the fall of 2019 when a group of secondary students unwittingly lit the flame for a massive political uprising. The students were protesting a recent hike in subway fares. The situation quickly escalated into a full-scale public revolt against runaway inflation, unemployment, and charges of inequality between the social classes. Ultimately the President was ousted from office, replaced by a 35-year-old former student leader. Today the majority of the members of Chile’s congress are in their 30’s and they are in the process of completely rewriting their constitution. It’s an interesting time to be visiting the country’s capital. Civil unrest continues, immigration is as pressing an issue for them as it is for us, and crime is rampant. This explains why an armed guard joined our group for its tour of Santiago’s historic downtown district and never seemed to take his hand off his weapon.
Every single building in the historic district has been tagged with some type of grafitti, damage done during the riots begun in 2019.
We visited the San Francisco Cathedral, built in 1622. The cathedral is one of the oldest colonial buildings in the country, and has survived no fewer than fifteen 7+ magnitude earthquakes. It’s been damaged, but never toppeled.
The Presidential Palace houses the offices of the President and several cabinet ministers. It began life as the national royal mint in 1805, and in 1845 was converted to the presidential palace. Back in day the President and his family actually lived here, but today the residence is elsewhere.
Armed guards surrounded the square where the palace is situated. We caught this guy on a smoke break.
Following our tour of downtown we visited Chile’s second largest winery , Santa Rita Vineyard.
The walk from the parking lot to the winery is lined with beautiful old-growth trees, some of which have grape vines twisted among their branches, still producing fruit.
There are massive Bougainville plants (trees? bushes?) all over the property, and the grape vines are thick with gorgeous fruit.
Before we began our tour of the winery, we were given the opportunity to do a self-guided tour of an on-site museum, Museo Andino, which houses a collection of pre-Hispanic Chilean archeological finds and an exhibit of contemporary art.
Among the artifacts a display of gaucho gear. Check out those stirrups – I bet they weigh 20 lbs. each!
Very humanistic contemporary art. This one was Pam’s favorite…
Look in any one of the holes of the petrified log on the left, and you find this little caveman with his living quarters inside!
The winery was established in 1880, making it one of the country’s oldest and longest-standing wineries. Today it is a fully modern operation, working 24-hours/day, five days/week to produce more than 10 MILLION cases of varying quality of wines that are shipped to more than seventy countries around the globe. But wait! What’s behind that wall?
Wine isn’t the only thing this estate is known for, however. In 1814 a group of 120 independence fighters took refuge in the cellar of the main house, hiding from the forces of the Spanish crown.
Finally it was time for our own wine tasting!
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