Two Nights In Santiago Before Our Chilean Trek Begins
If you read this blog often (both of you) you may have noticed that Anna likes to go on wildlife trips and this time she had planned well in advance for us to go puma trekking in Patagonia, Chile this year, but there were few things to take into account. First, we’ve learnt from the past that trips that involve stalking animals are exhausting, but our journey from Singapore to Chile via New Zealand would probably be almost as bad, if not worse so we would need to space things out a bit, meaning we would be spending a couple of nights in the country’s capital.
That’s going to be a LOUD night!
Also, a couple of months before we were to leave I saw that one of my favourite bands, Mr. Bungle, would be playing in Santiago the day we would be arriving (right) so I had purchased a couple of tickets. What better way to fend off the jet lag than with a really loud gig, right? Time would tell…
Wednesday, October 8, 2025
Just getting to Chile was going to mess with our minds. We’d be leaving Singapore just before 11:00pm on Tuesday, October 7 on a nine-hour flight to Auckland, New Zealand, a city that is four hours ahead of Singapore, where we would have a layover for six hours before taking a 12-hour flight to Santiago, Chile, where it is 11 hours behind Singapore. Yup, this was going to be tricky so we downed some sleeping pills as soon as we boarded the plane and the next thing we knew we were landing in New Zealand in the early afternoon. We had plenty of time to get out and have a look around during our layover so we caught a taxi down to the Viaduct waterfront area, had a stroll around the city, but one thing that had piqued our interest was that a lot of the bars and restaurants on the waterfront had happy hour for both drinks and oysters in the early evening. Paying NZ$2.00 (US$1.15) per oyster and cheap drinks by the water seemed to be the best way to kill our time so several drinks and two dozen oysters later it was time to head back to the airport and catch our next flight.
We were aboard the plane and taxiing to the runway when there was an announcement that a passenger was too sick to fly. We had seen him in the airport and he seemed completely fine, but when he was onboard seated in the area behind me surrounded by flight attendants with a sick bag in his hand, not so much. We needed to circle back to the terminal for him to disembark so our flight eventually departed over an hour late. Once airborne we watched some TV and movies while trying our best not to sleep so much and despite the delay and still being in the air for half a day on this particular flight we landed in Chile around four hours before we had left Aukland on the same afternoon. We knew we were going to struggle, plus my noisy anti-jet lag plan wouldn’t come to fruition that night either, because only days earlier I had received an email stating that the entire remaining South American leg of the Mr. Bungle tour had been cancelled due to the singer of the support act, Avenged Sevenfold, suffering an illness.
We caught an Uber to our hotel, the wine-themed Sommelier Hotel Boutique, checked in, scoped out the rooftop bar, and then hit the streets, anything just to make sure we stayed awake. While wandering around the main shopping area we noticed several narrow arcades that had small restaurants that also sold drinks in them, with men sitting around at the tables in the arcade drinking 1.5 litre (50 fl. oz) beers so we decided to take part in the local culture and pull up a seat outside one opposite a strip club called El Panal (The Honeycomb). When I went to the bathroom upstairs there were old men playing backgammon and dominoes and I’m not sure if I’d trust the food in our particular restaurant, but that wouldn’t been an issue as Anna had already decided upon a place for dinner so we’d only be there for the beers.
Anna had chosen Chipe Libre as our destination for dinner and as we wound through Plaza de Armas, a park filled with really cool dogs and lined with people playing chess, one thing became abundantly clear — It was a good thing that concert was cancelled, because the doors were to open at 9:30pm, so by the time Mr. Bungle took the stage it would probably be close to midnight, however, it was currently only 7:30pm and we were fading fast! Stews are a staple in Chile and this restaurant had a bunch that all looked good so we ordered a seafood one, as well as ceviche and beef tongue while Anna drank a cocktail out of a depressed-looking tiki mug. After an incredible first dinner in Santiago we decided if we went on a bit of a pub crawl the walking would help keep us awake, but we were completely wrong, our eyes slowly closing at each stop and then completely as we sat at our rooftop bar. Time for bed.
Oysters in Auckland, our wine-themed hotel in Santiago, as well as eating and drinking on our first night in Chile:
Thursday, October 9, 2025
After a relatively decent night’s sleep, waking up early, and now having a full day ahead of us it was time to see what Santiago had to offer:
Santiago is the capital and largest city of Chile and one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is located in the country’s central valley and is the center of the Santiago Metropolitan Region, which has a population of seven million, representing 40% of Chile’s total population. Most of the city is situated between 500–650 m (1,640–2,133 ft) above sea level.
Founded in 1541 by the Spanish conquistador Pedro de Valdivia, Santiago has served as the capital city of Chile since colonial times. The city features a downtown core characterised by 19th-century neoclassical architecture and winding side streets with a mix of Art Deco, Gothic Revival, and other styles.
Obviously coffee was first on the itinerary before heading out on an extremely long walk with the next stop being the Central Market on the other side of the city, housed in an old train station, however, that turned out to be a disappointment due to there being no flea market aspect, just a regular wet market with nothing but fresh seafood, meat, and vegetables for sale. We weren’t too bothered though, because taking a different route back would have us passing a lot of buildings decorated with eye-catching murals and then our favourite, a bunch of vintage stores, one containing an original Danzig t-shirt that was unfortunately a tad too small for me. Oh well, I am absolutely enormous in this part of the world as we have previously discovered so it was no surprise. Anna was keen to take a ride on the city’s funicular, but this one seemed like the view would be kind of dull and we only had the one day in the city, plus funiculars have haven’t been in the news for good reasons recently so we skipped it and moved on. Also, that jet lag was beginning to kick in again so even though it was only about 1:30pm, after some cheese-baked scallops and empanadas we had to go back to our room for a nap.
Our first proper look around Santiago:
Once we were rejuvenated it was time to push on in the other direction, exploring the areas around where we were staying, but with the ultimate destination being Barrio Italia:
Barrio Italia is a historic neighbourhood in Ñuñoa and Providencia in Santiago, Chile. The neighborhood contains a number of heritage buildings where immigrant artisans from different countries lived during Santiago’s past. Most notably, Barrio Italia was historically populated by Italian immigrants after whom the neighbourhood is named, being in practical terms a Little Italy in the Chilean capital.
At present, Barrio Italia is recognised in the Chilean capital for its wide gastronomic offerings, specifically international cuisine, of which there are various restaurants and cafes specialising in Italian, Chilean, Peruvian, Chinese, Ecuadorian, Spanish, French, Texan, Uruguayan, Venezuelan, Vietnamese, Turkish, Indian, and Thai foods. Other amenities within Barrio Italia include shops, warehouses, workshops, the Italian embassy, and various educational institutions. The neighbourhood has a reputation as a bohemian or hipster area of Santiago.
That ticks a lot of boxes for us and by the time we had arrived we instantly regretted walking all the way out to the pointless market when this definitely seemed more like our kind of area. Anna had even found another spot already for dinner that night, the 113-year old El Hoyo, which also turned out to be the restaurant where Anthony Bourdain claimed he had his best meal in Santiago. We eventually arrived to make a booking and as this place was large, plus there were only the two of us so there wasn’t a problem getting a table, but this cancelled Mr. Bungle concert seemed to be haunting me. While Anna was making our reservation I was looking at the photos on the wall of the celebrities that had eaten at the restaurant in the past and one of them just happened to be of Mr. Bungle’s frontman Mike Patton with a waiter. This was starting to get a bit weird, but as I later found out he’s a bit of a hero here, because after democracy returned to Chile his most famous band, Faith No More, played a televised festival and apparently he really interacted with the crowd and tried to be a part of the community afterwards, just doing what the locals do while he was in town. In fact, I’d later find a print of him on the wall in another shop as well.
Anyway, after getting our reservation sorted we sat in the garden of a pub looking up what there was in the area, but that wasn’t really necessary, because it turned out that just a little further up the road past a house with a weird African statue sitting on the porch was everything we wanted; flea markets, vintage stores, record stores for me, small designers for Anna, and of course some awesome bars and pubs. We definitely had plenty to do, but unfortunately not enough time for all of it, we had to cut the fun short and head to the restaurant not so long after, but we still bought some cool stuff. We knew what we were about to eat would be great, but Anna had something else in mind too, she wanted to try a local drink that is claimed to have been created at El Hoyo, the Terremoto, described on their menu as:
This is Chile’s most popular drink, created in our establishment 1978 by Don Guillermo Valenzuela. At that time, it was called “Submarino”, because the pineapple ice cream floated on top of the pipeño (traditional sweet wine). In 1985, when a group of journalists came to the country to cover the earthquake that occured that year, after trying the drink and feeling a “little jolt”, they said “this is really an earthquake”. At that moment, it was renamed, and of course, the “aftershocks” (referring to the series of tremors that follow an earthquake) were born, which of course comes after the first glass.
Okay, there’s the alleged history of the Terremoto that slightly alludes to the ingredients, but what is really in it? Wikipedia to the rescue once more:
The drink is mainly made up of white Pipeño wine or non-denominated white wine (generic wine of any strain), pineapple ice cream and grenadine. In its traditional presentation (approximately 400 ml glass) it is called the Terremoto (earthquake). A half-size terremoto served after the first is sometimes referred to as an aftershock. The large jug is popularly known as Cataclismo, the small glass repetition is known as Réplica and the small glass before (or if it is the only one) is known as Temblor, the version with red wine is known as Africano or Terremoto Africano.
That sounds pretty sweet and gross, but Anna was all for giving one a go, I’d just order a beer and have a sip of her drink, my initial prediction being correct. Another thing this place does really well is blood sausage so we ordered a few of those and they were spectacular, as well as a dish that had pulled pork on top of french fries and a fried egg, and a couple of other small sides while sitting in the large dining hall, one wall adorned with a painting of ‘San Anthony’ Bourdain holding a terremoto in one hand and a string of blood sausages in the other, surrounded by photos of the man himself inside.
We finished our food and Anna’s ghastly drink before heading out to a few other bars in the area for some normal beverages while we played with pugs, but once again it was getting difficult to keep our eyes open. That wasn’t a bad thing though, because we had an early flight in the morning, plus we’d need to recover from the 29 kms (18 miles) we had walked that day!
Shops, bars, and El Hoyo in Barrio Italia, as well as some of the surrounding areas:
Well, that’s it for our stay in Santiago, but stay tuned for the real, more interesting purpose of this trip to Chile, staying in Patagonia so we can try and find some pumas and other creatures in the wild!
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