I came to Santiago (Chile) packing a 2017 New York Times article entitled “36 Hours in Santiago.” Steve and I actually had more than 50 hours in the Chilean capital, so I never intended to follow the Times itinerary to the letter. Still I like the 36- (or often 48- or 72-hours) in Wherever format; it suggests sightseeing highlights and often gives me ideas for where to eat. I borrowed the format last fall when I blogged about our 31 hours in Seoul, a stopover during which I concluded that Seoul deserves to be included on any list of the great cities on the planet. Fifty hours in Chile’s biggest city made me think Santiago doesn’t. But it also reminded me that any attempt to make snap judgments about a brief stop anywhere is fraught with peril.
Our first 24 hours in Santiago started off uncomfortably and then went downhill. I felt elated when our Avianca flight from Mexico City arrived about 8:20 pm Sunday — a bit early. But then we had to spend 40 minutes in line to get a simple entry stamp in our passports. We felt happy again to find our bags (which we checked, due to their weight) waiting for us on a moving carousel. After collecting them, we made our way through a gauntlet of some of the most aggressive taxi drivers I’ve confronted anywhere. I had studied up on the best way to take an Uber from the airport into the city, a move reported to be difficult because the taxi drivers hate the Uberfolk so much they sometimes physically attack them. I’d found (and photocopied) one detailed blog post that counseled going to the short-term parking lot next to the Holiday Inn across the street from the airport. Uber drivers could pick up passengers there without being harassed, this writer reported. But when Steve and I tried to follow his directions, we failed epically. The driver we were connected with texted us (in Spanish) that he could not get into that parking lot. He suggested meeting us elsewhere, but we couldn’t figure out where he was talking about. Finally, 20 minutes later, exhausted and irritated, we gave up and instead paid for a pre-paid taxi that turned out to be fast and efficient (if $10 more expensive than an Uber ride probably would have been.)
Our Airbnb apartment was fine, but by the time we reached it (around 10:30 pm), we were starving. (My advice: do not ever count on Avianca to feed you over the course of a long day.) Happily, a Japanese-Peruvian restaurant across the street was still open, and we gobbled down some excellent seafood and Pisco sours before climbing into bed.
The doorbell buzzing at 6 am Monday morning surprised us awake. It was our son Michael and his girlfriend Stephanie, arriving two hours earlier than we expected them, and with a friend in tow whose hotel wasn’t accessible until 2 pm. They all collapsed with exhaustion, and Steve and I took to the street to do some exploring.
It was barely 40 degrees, the sky a dismal steely gray, rain clearly on the way. Looking for a coffee shop, we passed countless giant apartment buildings, most of them ranging in style from plain to ugly. Graffiti covered a lot of the facades, some of it muralistic but much simple tagging.
On one corner a small knot of riot police appeared to be massing (though we saw nothing remotely riotous looking in the surrounding area.) We passed a number of dogs being walked, and I was charmed by how many were dressed, either in winter coats or raincoats. Still they didn’t look much happier than many of the people.
My spirits bounced up later, when we had collected Michael and Stephanie and Devin and headed to the historic heart of the city for a Chilean staple known as the “completo” — a hot dog laden with any of a host of toppings.
After lunch we strolled around the huge central plaza, popping into the cathedral and central post office. It started drizzling, but we plowed on, visiting the central market and a old train station that’s been converted to a social center. By then the cold rain was strengthening; the sky darker. By the time we reached the central library, a vast structure that reminded me of New York City’s, I was too cold and tired to want to go in (though Steve, Mike, and Stephanie soldiered on). Once back in the apartment, I took some pleasure in my phone’s report that I had covered 8.8 miles and climbed 20 floors.
Saturday morning, Santiago felt like a different city. The rain was gone, and patches of sunny blue sky flirted with light clouds. It took us a while to get organized, but by late morning, the five of us had walked to the foot of Cerro San Cristobal, a spur of the Andes that’s one of the city’s most prominent landmarks. An ancient funicular carries passengers up to the top, near the site of a tower Virgin Mary. She looks quite striking
but even more dazzling were the line of snow-laden nearby Andes that she overlooks.
The sight of them energized all of us. After a nearby lunch, we covered a lot more ground, walking to a huge central food market…
…a striking arts complex
… and more. We also had a fantastic meal that night (almost 30 separates tastes showcasing the ancestral foods of Chile).
The day made me feel we could easily have enjoyed at least a few more days in Santiago. But we wanted at least a glimpse of the vast Chilean wine country. We’re in the midst of it now. Outside my Santa Cruz hotel window, the sky looks awfully threatening. At least we have a rental car to (mostly) get us around.
Mexico City impressed me when I first went there, around the end of 1978. It was the first non-European capital I’d ever visited, and it felt exotic. It was the Third World, as we called developing nations back then. On our taxi ride from the airport to our Zona Rosa hotel, I remember eyeing shanties; smelling burning garbage. That visit also exposed me to world-class marvels: the pyramids of Teotihuacan, the city’s huge central plaza, its marvelous anthropology museum, Chapultepec Park. We hung out mostly in the chic neighborhoods, and I recall concluding that the city seemed a wild mixture of Paris and Tijuana.
Koons’ gigantic Play-doh pile (made of interlocking aluminum pieces rather than actual Play-doh) amazed me with its beauty and complex craftsmanship.
The biggest outer pyramid, which honored the war god Huitzilopochtli and the rain god Tlaloc, is gone. But you can clearly see the remains of what it once sheltered: about a dozen levels of construction dating from 1375 to 1519. You can stare at the double staircase where the bodies of human sacrificial victims were thrown down the steps after their hearts were ripped out. An impressive museum fills in a lot of the details, gory and otherwise. The power and scale of what once filled this space are unmistakable. It made me happy to see two of the main cultures that shaped this country co-existing more equitably.
It took us just minutes to buy our one-way tickets ($20 per person) to walk across the bridge and obtain our Mexican visas (from a high-tech kiosk). We scanned the bridge ticket and our boarding pass at a gate that opened for us automatically. Then we strolled over and above that pesky border between the two countries. The passage couldn’t have taken even five minutes.
I still remember my first glimpse of the Guadalupe Valley in Baja California, years before it became well known as the Napa Valley of Mexico. I had turned off the coast highway about a mile and a half south of the last tollway, about 20 miles north of Ensenada. I’d driven east on Highway 3, past the city’s shanty outskirts and then past homey looking ranchos. After a while, the road climbed and cut through a dramatic rocky pass. The vista on the other side took my breath away; it opened to a pastoral paradise.
Getting around:
Our final lunch was at Deckman’s, perhaps my favorite of all. 
I’ve long been curious about Burning Man, the anarchic arts festival that has taken place for decades during the week before Labor Day in the harsh northern Nevada desert. At one point, Steve and I thought maybe the time was right for us to check it out. This was about 5 years after our older son moved to Reno (located about 100 miles southwest of the event). Alas by then its popularity had exploded. In 2010 more than 50,000 people attended Burning Man; in 2011 for the first time ever, tickets sold out about a month before the festivities started. In an attempt to curb the madness, the organizers created a complicated ticket lottery for the 2012 festival — the very year we targeted to attend. To our chagrin, we could only secure one ticket, so we gave up and resold it.
tutus, neon fur shin warmers, glitter, tie-dye, and onesies are the norm. Dressed in our jeans and t-shirts, Steve and I stuck out. That seemed okay too; no one appeared judgmental. But it was strange to feel a bit freakish by not dressing freakishly.
On December 20, five days after Steve and I returned from our nine-week Asian adventure, the New York Times published an article by its Frugal Traveler entitled “
The Pollution — I knew the air in India might be bad, but I was unprepared for the depths of its wretchedness. In the course of our trip, I discovered that the weather app on my iPhone includes an “air quality index.” Since we’ve gotten back, I’ve been checking it and have learned that San Diego’s air typically falls in the 20-50 range (“Good”), occasionally dipping up to moderate pollution levels. When we arrived in Bengal, however, the index number was about 150 (“Unhealthy for sensitive groups”), and it got worse city by city after that, through “Unhealthy” then “Very Unhealthy” then “Hazardous” (in the 300-500 range). By the time we hit Jaipur in Rajasthan, it was over 500, literally off the chart. (“Don’t Even Think about What This is Doing to Your Lungs!!!”) I started coughing maybe a week after our arrival October 15 and still haven’t totally stopped (though I feel 99% better).
Beyond the physical ill effects, the environmental despoliation was depressing. The air was foul not just here and there but every single place throughout the north and at least down to Mumbai (Bombay). Kerala in the far south was slightly better, though hardly pristine. Seen through clean air, much of the Indian landscape would be beautiful. Its absence is heartbreaking.
A monumental rock formation rises almost straight up from the heart of Sri Lanka. It’s known as Lion Rock — Sigiriya. Archeologists think humans have been living on and around it for more than 10,000 years, and many believe that in the late 400s (AD), a king named Kasyapa built a garden and palace at the summit after overthrowing and murdering his father. No buildings remain, but the ruins and fortifications are mind-boggling, considering the height and verticality of the site.
One small area on top of the formation. How DID the workers get all those bricks up the sheer walls?
We entered the grounds shortly after 7:30 am, when the day was still cool, and the hordes of Chinese tourists had not yet arrived. About halfway up, we shook our heads in wonder at the frescoes painted in one long gallery in the sheer rock face. A parade of women with Barbie bodies — tiny waists and beautiful naked breasts — decorate the wall. (Scholars suppose them to be either heavenly nymphs or a depiction of Kasyapa’s concubines.) A little further on, we passed graffiti dating back to the 6th to 14th centuries. Awestruck visitors scratched the comments, mostly noting how hot the ladies were.
Guards stopped us from taking any pictures of the frescoes, but the lion’s paws carved into a plateau near the top are a popular photo op.
One of the views from Galle Fort.
Next we traveled to the cool, misty highlands; spent a morning hiking and loving the green-drenched vistas at every turn.
Old trains that run over single tracks built by the British colonialists in the early 1800s are a part of the tea-country landscape.
…where Steve proved remarkably adept at picking tea leaves…
It’s never shown to the public, but the ardor of the pilgrims is evident.
…the Royal Rock Temple complex in Dambulla, filled with about 150 statues of the Buddha that followers began creating about 2000 years ago.
Painted designs and images make it look like the cave ceilings are covered with exquisite Oriental rugs.
This one was made from more than 90 million bricks and stood at the center of a monastery complex that once housed 3000 monks.
For most of his life, Omar’s been a driver — of cars and trucks and tuk-tuks — but he also has worked for a number of NGOs, including a journalism team that did some fine reporting toward the end of Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war. Belying his sweet, even humble, demeanor, he seemed resourceful and astute to us. He didn’t hide his voracious appetite for breaking news. We talked a lot about the political uproar that’s been roiling Sri Lanka since late October, when the current president shocked everyone by firing the prime minister and replacing him with the strong man who ended the war (in 2009) but at the cost of abysmal human-rights abuses.
We saw this demonstration near the Parliament building in Colombo. Omar sounded optimistic; he said he thought the fracas would turn out to be just a rat’s nest of political scheming and ego, rather than a tinder pile that could explode into a conflict in which a lot of people would die. He knows a lot more about Sri Lanka than me; I hope he’s right. The country is packed with more beautiful and interesting areas than other places many times its size. But when thuggish narcissists play games, they can cause a lot of pain for the common folk.
Newspapers still appear to be thriving, and people were scanning them anxiously.
…but we spotted a few fishing boats on the water…
…and then some guys in the distance, pulling a rope.
The channel was too deep for us to wade across, but we found more men pulling hard on another line when we walked back in the direction of our hotel.
The work looked strenuous, but sociable.
Nothing happened suddenly, but eventually the net attached to the rope emerged from the water.
The men were careful in its management.
Eventurally the distant boat that had been somehow positioning the net approached the shore.
It’s occupants first rowed, then lugged it onto the beach…
Then they began to pull on another line that had been staked to a pole in the sand.
As the net drew closer and the surf increased, the work could be rough.
But the two wings of the team edged ever closer to each other.
In the final stages, a host of birds swirled ahead. I felt nervous. What if, after all this work, the net was empty?
No worries. As the haul emerged, there was bounty in the strands.
The air was filled with the frantic flipping of dying fish.
One of the fishermen told us it wasn’t a fantastic catch, but much better than it had been for the past few days. 
This guy asked if we wanted to go on an evening tour of the lagoon, but we had to decline. We had other fish to fry (metaphorically). I’m posting this now from the misty highland tea country. It’s a little hard to believe we’re in the same country. 
In this, the final phase of our long South Asian adventure, Steve and I are trying to cram a comprehensive look at Sri Lanka into 11 days. The island is only about the size of Ireland. But it has several distinct aspects that made us to want to cover a lot of ground. Tuesday, our one full day in the capital (Colombo), we walked around enough to feel satisfied. Wednesday we took a train south down the coast to the ancient trading port and current World Heritage Site of Galle. We stayed exclusively within the walls of its 500-year-old fort, a compact area now filled with trendy guesthouses and chic shops and good restaurants. We enjoyed the strolling and the eating — but there’s not much more I can say about it that’s interesting.
The volunteer guide introduced us to three of the other four sea turtle species that come to this part of the world to breed.
We inspected the hatchery, where the center staff buries turtle eggs that have been dug up by locals and brought to them for protection against predators such as dogs and mongooses.
I felt thrilled to see these amazing animals up so close. Finally the guide placed a newborn, hatched that very morning, into my palm. Black in color, and vigorously paddling the air, it felt strong enough to escape from my hand.
So Steve and I hastened down to the surf. I placed him on the sand and we both held our breath, watching wave after wave come close but fall just short of reaching him. 
Then the incoming seawater swirled close enough, and the newborn paddled frantically.
A minute later, he was out of sight.
We felt exhilarated. What a brilliant free-market approach to saving this species! Pay local folks who might otherwise destroy them to bring them to a refuge dedicated to getting them back into the sea. We gave the guide a good tip, gladdened by the thought that our visit was making the world a little safer for sea turtles.
At home and abroad 