Santiago day 2

I am up and waiting for breakfast to be served at 8:30.

I was finishing up yesterdays journaling on the blog.

At least I have a plan for this morning. I have reservations to join a walking at 10am and will probably do some biking after that.

Santiago is not as bike friendly as Lima. They don't seem to have a good network  of bike paths. I'll give an update on that later.

After breakfast, I headed out to meet the Free walking tour at the Iglesia de San Franciso.

I arrived a bit early so it gave me a chance to tour inside the church before meeting the walking tour.

The church was consecrated in 1622. The first bell tower was destroyed by an earthquake in 1647 and its collapse caused damage in a part of the choir. The rest of the building successfully resisted it. In 1730 another earthquake badly damaged the rebuilt tower, which was demolished in 1751. The current bell tower is of Victorian architecture and was constructed in the mid-1800s. Its architect was Fermín Vivaceta and features a distinctive clock.

As you can read this church is quite old. What is amazing is that the current, 3rd construction of the bell tower was built in the mid 1800's, a totally wooded structure. The amazing thing is that it has lasted for close to 200 years and not burned down.

The main church area is quite ornate, the side altars are nice, but not so grand as the ones seen in Lima.

From there we walked to original financial district, Santiago's version of Wall Street. Although many businesses still call this their home, many have moved to newer high rise buildings in other parts of the city. The buildings here are quite ornate and very interesting.

There were these ornate cast iron structures in the street here. In the day, they were the pedestals for payphones. Here as everywhere else in the world (except Oaxaca, where there are still payphones on the streets), pay phones have disappeared,  but these pedestals were spared as street adornments.

From here we proceeded to the Presidential Palace. There are several large statues in the plaza in front of the presidential palace. The first one we came upon was of Salvador Allende, the liberal democratically elected president just prior to the coup d'état lead by of Augusto Pinoche. This was our longest stop on the tour. Our guide did a rather lengthy, detailed but also interesting narrative of this recent history of Chile.

The short version of that narrative is that Salvador Allende was the president of Chile from 1970 to 1973. Pinoche was his commander of the armed forces. Allende's term as president saw extreme financial hardship for the country.

One day in 1973, Allende heard unusual noises whiile in his office at the palace. He walked out onto his office balcony only to see fighter jets flying overhead, snippers on all the roofs surrounding the square and numerous tanks on the streets surrounding the square. Via bullhorns, Pinoche's forces demanded that Allende resign as president. Instead, Allende's palace guards took up arms to defend the President and the presidential palace. A brief firefight ensued and the palace was bombed by the fighter jets.

Allende, seeing that most of his guards had been killed. Knowing that he would be prosecuted by Pinoche and either executed or sent to prison for the rest of his life, took his own life. He is buried in a ornate mausoleum in the Cementario General

Because of the failing economy under Allende, hurting US financial interests in mining in Chile. Henry Kissinger pressured Richard Nixon to have the CIA engage in regime change, assisting Pinoche's ascension to power and support for his government in his early years. Pinoche stayed in power for 17 years. During which time he would try, imprison and execute anyone that voiced opposition to his rule. He was responsible for executing over 3000 people, imprisoning over 80,000 and 10's of thousands of tortures.

As Pinoche's record of violence became known to the outside world, he saw that his days were numbered. His support by the US CIA had evaporated. He did still have a friend in England, that being Margaret Thatcher that provided him asylum in Great Britain.

Pinoche was never convicted of his crimes in the world court other than financial crimes. He later returned to Chile as very old man in very poor health. His poor health was cited as the reason he was never tried in Chile. He died at his home, never held accountable for his actions as the dictator in Chile. He is buried in a private family cemetary.

The deep devisions of the political extremes still last to this day. The 2 extremes are the extremists with Allende as their hero and the other with Pinochet as their hero. Allende's statue at the presidential palace is the only presidential statue that is guarded 24 hours a day to prevent vandalism by Pinochet extremists.

From the palace we proceeded to the Plaza de Armas. The square features a large monument honoring the pre-Spanish indigenous groups of Chile.

On one side is the Central Post Office which was the original presidential palace. 

I left the walking tour early because I had a problem to deal with. My passport was missing and I needed to revisit a few places from yesterday to see if any of them had my passport.

I had to show my passport where I bought some Cell time. That was the most probable, so when he said he didn't have it my heart sank a bit. I checked a couple other places. Same thing. No passport.

I finally decided that I needed to go to a police station to report it missing. I found a nearby station and was in the waiting room. After a few minutes, I decided to leave and go back to the hostel to go through belongings with a fine tooth comb.

Back at the hostel, I totally emptied my locker piece by piece. I was down to the last 3 items when, much to my glee, there was my passport.

I could then take my daily siesta in piece and happiness.

I stayed close to the hostel for the rest of the day. I did go back to the pastry shop to try out their pizza. It was very good. I 'all be going back again.