We get up and aren’t 100% sure what to do today… So, we do what we always do when we’re not sure what to do; we go for a walk! As you are probably now tired of, walking around in Chile usually leads to seeing A LOT of public art. So, here you go.
Although there are many different things painted on the walls of Santiago, we’re showing you these that are mostly related to the Mapuche of Chile. Although the Mapuche are traditionally from further south, since Santiago is the capital of Chile many Mapuche have migrated here.
Continuing on, we are reminded that we are still in a University of Chile neighbourhood. This is because of the trophy below is the Copa Sudamericana which the “local” team won back in 2011. It is the “second” tournament of South America, the first one being the Copa Libertadores.
But then we make it to our actual destination. We didn’t just “blindly” walk around, it was with a purpose. This is the side entrance to Santiago’s General Cemetery. It is an absolutely massive cemetery located in the neighbourhood of Recoleta. We think you will quickly see why we chose to come for a walk here. Let’s go!
We entered the cemetery grounds, but we’re no experts so we had to look for a map. But where..? We found two older gentlemen that were just sitting along the outside of an office-looking building and we asked them for a “mapa” of the cemetery. They looked at us as though we were aliens. They had no idea what we were talking about! We asked again… and again they didn’t know. Then we explained what a “mapa” was… and then one of the older gentlemen said “ohhhh… you mean plano”. We were unaware of the difference, but we said yes, we want a “plano”. We got the map and were now ready to look around!
(For the record… we asked many Chileans about whether we should have said “mapa” or if “plano” was actually the right word. Although they said that “plano” was more correct… the guy was just being difficult and definitely knew that that’s what we meant when we said “mapa”. Such a funny guy… haha).
Anyway! Now we’re fully into the cemetery and start walking around. But, don’t worry, we’re still able to find beauty within this cemetery. Even the cemetery walls are beautiful in Chile, apparently.
But, we’re obviously not looking for art in a cemetery (although it is an added bonus). We came because the General Cemetery is a “tourist attraction” itself. We start following the “plano” almost blindly to see where we end up. And we quickly find the two stops below.
On the left we have an Art Deco style mausoleum. There is a little plaque explaining that this style was built by the wealthy of Santiago in the 1920s trying to copy more European-like styles. Although the style was boundary pushing one hundred years ago, now it seems rather conservative. Especially when compared to more artistic burial sites like that of Don Jose Maria Muñoz Hermosilla (right). The plaque was quite difficult to read, but it says that he was a “grand master” of Chilean pedagogy and a pioneer of education in the south of Chile.
A little bit further we see these niches.
Another hard-to-read-sign explained that this wall of niches dates from the 19th Century. The wall is actually not only holding these niches, but it also represents a separation between two halves of the General Cemetery. On one side we have the opulent burial sites of Chile’s elites with intricate and expensive monuments (including to Chile’s presidents) including many historical burial sites while on the other side you have the burials of Chile’s common people in a more modern setting. Very interesting that there is an actual physical divide.
And, we also took the above picture because it says “truth and justice” on the wall. You may understand a little later… but the General Cemetery of Santiago is actually a place that regularly has protests within it. People often come here to commemorate certain people that are buried here or when certain people are being buried here. You will probably get a better idea as to why in the near future, haha.
We walk past the wall and keep going into the “regular” cemetery. We didn’t take any pictures, but to us it was definitely a “regular” cemetery. We didn’t think it was appropriate to take pictures because these graves are all more recent and there were actually quite a few people either visiting their loved ones or participating in actual funerals. But, we had to walk through this section because there was a burial site we were looking for. Although the map was not the best… it led us to the general area of what we were looking for… but there weren’t any signs or anything. It was just rows and rows and rows of grave sites… uh oh. We started walking down one random row, but turned around because we thought we had gone too far. Then we started down another one, but also turned around. Finally a random gentleman that was visiting a loved one asked us “excuse me! Are you looking for someone?” We of course said that we were, and he knew exactly where we needed to go. And that’s how we found the burial site for Victor Jara.
Victor Jara is a musician from Chile who is extremely famous. We would hazard to guess that there aren’t many Chileans that don’t know the name (if any). He was a folk music musician who had many famous songs that were popular around Chile. You should definitely take a listen to some of his songs. But, although many Chileans would immediately talk about his music, Victor Jara was also a teacher, poet, theatre director, and a political activist from the Communist Party. It was music plus his politics that would lead him to become a true symbol in all of Chile and beyond. (And why his grave seems so well visited).
Victor Jara composed the song “Venceremos” (“We Will Triumph”) that Salvador Allende used for his presidential campaign that he won in 1970. During the Allende presidency, Victor Jara worked very hard to further develop and promote the Chilean arts and culture within Chile and beyond. He would even make it to tours as far as the Soviet Union during this time. (Slight aside; while in Russia for World Cup 2018, we saw indications of Victor Jara. This must mean that he was quite important in the Soviet Union for Russia to remember him all of these years later). However, if you have been following the trip through Chile, you can probably guess what we will tell you next. Since he was so popular, an outspoken communist, and worked with the Allende presidency… he was arrested the day after the military coup in 1973. He was taken to the National Stadium along with many, many other people that were believed to be politically left-leaning. (Now, comes a story of what happened next that has almost reached mythical status, but that we have seen through many sources, so we obviously have to pass it on). Once in the National Stadium it is said that Victor Jara was recognized by the police/military. It is said that they broke his fingers so that he could no longer play the guitar, and then was mocked to “try to sing” while in the stadium. He did. He reportedly sang “Venceremos” and then he was immediately killed. The body was recovered outside of the stadium, identified, and quickly buried at the General Cemetery. Now, we must stress that the details that you find may be slightly different… but this is what we were able to learn from a few separate sources.
In a more contemporary sense, Victor Jara had a resurgence with the protests in 2019 (Estallido Social/Social Explosion) where his song “El Derecho de Vivir en Paz” (“The Right to Live in Peace”) became almost the unofficial anthem of the protests.
So now you can see why Victor Jara’s grave is marked on the cemetery map and why it is so well maintained and adorned. After we told some Chileans that we had visited here they told us that the tradition is to bring something and leave it at Victor Jara’s grave. That explains all of the things you see around his grave in the above picture.
Continuing along a little further we make it to this “square” and grave site. The burial site of Eduardo “Gato” Alquinta.
This actually fits nicely with the narrative that we’ve got going because Eduardo Alquinta was also a Chilean musician. He was a member of Los Jaivas, a popular Chilean musical group from 1970s. They performed music in the same vein as Victor Jara. The group actually fled Chile after the military coup to Argentina, but they then had to flee Chile to France because of the military dictatorship in Argentina. They are still a popular music group in Chile, and we heard some of their music while we visited Chile.
But then we continue to some other areas of the cemetery with a little less to tell, haha. It’s not all steeped in Chilean history (at least that we know of). First stop, the Chaplain Luis Gutierrez Square. Although this square was indicated on the cemetery map, and it is obviously well kept, we have zero clue who Chaplain Luis Gutierrez was. We could not find any obvious information even when looking on the internet after visiting the cemetery. If anyone reading this knows, we’d love to update this post!
Then we get back to the more “opulent” side of the cemetery. We’re now entering the main axis of the cemetery that contains the burial sites of the majority of Chile’s presidents.
From left to right above are the burial sites of Jose Manuel Balmaceda (president 1886-1891), Pedro Montt (president 1906-1910), and Anibal Pinto Garmendia (president 1876-1881). Something we noticed around many of these presidential burial sites were signs asking for people to please not graffiti the monument. You may be able to notice that that is not always observed. The monument to Pedro Montt is graffitied with the words “killer,” “killer of the workers,” and “Santa Maria doesn’t forget”. We weren’t sure exactly what we were looking at while here (there have been numerous massacres in Chile throughout its history), so we had to look it up. Pedro Montt was the president when the Santa Maria School massacre occurred in 1907. It was a massacre of (mostly) striking saltpeter miners in the north of Chile along with their wives and children. Now it makes sense why it was graffitied. (Many, MANY other burial sites for presidents and politicians were graffitied, pretty much exclusively eluding to things like above or against the military dictatorship. This is why we said that you may be able to tell why there are protests here.)
We walk a bit further and then we reach this HUGE burial site. It is the site of the burial of Salvador Allende, the president that was removed from office and killed by the military coup on the 11th of September 1973.
It is an extremely big monument, but, you can imagine that he wasn’t always buried here. He was actually originally buried in Santa Ines in Viña del Mar. This is because he was not to be laid to rest with all of the other presidents. It was only after democracy returned to Chile that Salvador Allende was exhumed and brought here for his proper presidential burial. The plaque pictured above in the middle is from a speech that Allende gave to Chile while La Moneda was being bombed on the day of the coup. It says “Workers of my country: I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Others will overcome this grey and bitter moment, when betrayal tries to impose itself. Keep going knowing that, sooner than later, the great avenues will open where the free men will walk to build a better society…” His speech on that fateful day was broadcast across Chile over the radio and has since been used a lot during commemoration events.
And this is as good a time as any… we’ve now shown you four presidential burial sites. All presidents are buried here except two. Gabriel Gonzalez Videla and Pinochet. We’re not sure why Videla was not buried here…
But we continue walking.
Next up is this monument to Gladys Marin. We can explain a bit of who she is… but we think that she can introduce herself with the quote that is displayed on the above monument. “I belong to the people, to those workers and to everyone who fights. Only that is what it means to be revolutionary. We exist for others, because of the others, not for ourselves.” With that, you get all of the information we needed to give. She was an activist and political figure, and she even led the Chilean communist party. She was also the first person to file a lawsuit against Pinochet on the grounds of violations to human rights. You can tell that she is still well regarded because of the flowers that are at the monument. Also, again with the protests in 2019, there was a common slogan saying “fight like Gladys”.
Now we are reaching the end of the monuments we will show you. On the left we have a monument to Orlando Letelier del Solar and on the right we have a monument to Volodia Teitelboim Volosky.
Orlando Letelier was a politician and diplomat during the presidency of Salvador Allende. As you can imagine, his career ended after the 1973 coup and he lived in the United States of America in Washington, DC. Here he held various academic positions. But, we’re not telling you all of that just because, obviously. Orlando Letelier would become famous around the world in 1976 when the secret service of Chile killed Letelier in Washington DC using a car bomb. This obviously made world news at the time.
Volodia Teitelboim Volosky was an author and part of the communist party. The reason we took the picture is because he was awarded the National Literature Prize in 2002 in Chile. But, again, after 1973 he had to flee Chile and lived a life in exile in Moscow until 1988 when he returned to Chile to campaign for the end of the dictatorship. While living in Moscow he launched a radio program called “Escucha Chile” (“Listen Chile”).
Well, maybe we should have said this before… but of course we were going to speak about death and some darker stories… but we are walking around a cemetery, so it only makes sense, haha.
As you can see, we’ve seen a lot and learned a lot while following along this map in the General Cemetery. It’s actually reminding us of the cemetery we visited in Moscow while we were there for the 2018 World Cup. If you’ve been following since then, you may also remember the incredible monuments that we saw there.
Now, we only have a few quick stops before leaving the cemetery.
The first (left) is the Rich Christ, so named because it is in the area of the cemetery with mausoleums and extravagant tombs. (There is also a Poor Christ that we did not find). Second (centre) is the Aztec Mausoleum. And the third (right) is the Gothic Mausoleum. These were just to show different architectural styles of mausoleums. We have no clue who are buried here.
And with that we walk the few remaining steps of the cemetery. As we leave we notice a few more tombs that are completely graffitied, but we didn’t take pictures of them. Only after did we realize that they were politicians that worked during the military dictatorship. Again, they are targets during protests that occur inside the cemetery. But, now it is time to leave the cemetery through the main entrance.
The main entrance is massive and beautiful! And we took this picture before seeing the statue just behind us.
So, of course, we take a few step backs and take the picture again. You can see the statue we were talking about with what looks like an angel reaching towards the sky.
So… what is this? When we took the picture we had no idea. And then we looked at the map and saw that this is called La Paz Square. We asked ourselves “what does this have to do with Bolivia?” We still don’t know, haha. BUT! A few days after being at this square we randomly saw a video explaining that this monument is called “Monument to the victims of the La Compañia fire”. So, this got us asking even more questions, of course.
As the title suggests, the monument is to commemorate the victims of a fire that occurred in 1863. There were over 2,000 people that had congregated in a church named “Iglesia de la Compañia de Jesus” (“The Company of Jesus Church”). There was a religious celebration and over 7,000 lamps were lit inside of the church, mainly using oil and gas. You can kind of put together what happened next. To make things even worse, the doors to the church opened inward, so no one was able to escape. The majority of the people could not be identified after the fire, so they were buried in a mass grave in front of the General Cemetery. The monument now sits on top of this mass grave.
But this fire had huge ramifications throughout Chile. As it was the biggest fire in Chile’s history (supposedly still the case), it was decided that Santiago needed their own firefighters as Valparaiso had. Until that time a police station was also in charge of doing firefighting duties. So, the Firefighters Brigade of Santiago was founded. Also, people believed that the reason the church had burned was because of some unknown sin. To try to remove this sin, it is said that all remainders of the church were to be destroyed and removed. Many people actually directly blamed the Catholic Church for the disaster (reportedly including as far as the USA and Europe) and thus many people started to demand that the Church and State begin to separate their powers. This fire is credited as a contributing factor to Chile’s distancing from the Church and becoming a more secular state. (We found an interesting research article where the majority of this information was taken from).
But, with that we put more distance between us and the cemetery. And with that… we think we are done telling you hard stories about deaths in all kinds of terrible circumstances. You know we like to learn about the places we visit. And if we learn, you learn, haha.
Well… maybe death hasn’t escaped us just yet, haha. Just on the corner of the La Paz Square we see this beautiful public art. At the top it says “The corner where sorrow blooms”. It could also be translated to “The corner where flowers are thrown towards sorrow” as the people are making it rain with flower petals. Either way, it looks beautiful.
But with that we start walking through the city again. We don’t really know this neighbourhood, but we just walk. People had kind of told us not to really do this…. but we had no other way to get where we wanted to go. And it wasn’t a long walk, ha. Our other option would have been to go through the cemetery again and go back to the side entrance as the subway station called Cemeteries is there. But… we didn’t want to do that. There were a few people walking around as well, so we felt fine. Later on, some locals told us that the neighbourhood is not the best… Good thing we didn’t know that beforehand, haha.
We continued walking and eventually made it to our destination. Welcome to the Central Market.
As it is obvious, this is a market in the centre of Santiago, haha. So clever. We wanted to see what it had going on inside. We had read that it was an older market that mainly sold seafood, and that is exactly what we found once inside.
It seemed like we made it here too late as most of the stalls were closed, but there were still plenty of restaurants that were offering up their menus as we walked around. We were also able to see many seafood/fish options at the stalls that were actually open. Hopefully fresh… but we’re not sure where it would come from as the coast is in Valparaiso… So, this explains both pictures in the centre and right above, but what about the left? We usually put up pictures with a slight purpose, haha. Well…. we took the picture on the left because we found it slightly strange that there was a sign about the renovation works carried out in 1984 by Pinochet, the military dictator of Chile. We were led to believe that most places had tried to erase his legacy… but we guess that’s not the case here. We even asked Chileans about it, and no one had ever noticed the sign before. I suppose my travel partner just tries to look at every single sign he sees, haha.
We weren’t actually looking to eat or buy anything, so we leave the market and continue walking through the city. We walk along a little park in front of the market and see this monument, the Monument to the Heroes of Iquique. It is a monument for a battle within the War of the Pacific between Chile and Peru in 1879.
We continue walking through this area of Santiago and eventually make it to the Plaza de Armas. This used to be a central square in the city, which is why it has that name. But now it is just a square that is filled with people at all times. And, because of that, I can get the below picture.
Then while there we take a picture of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Santiago (below, left) and the Monument to the Indigenous People (below, centre) before we left the Plaza de Armas and arrived in front of La Moneda and took the third picture (below, right) of the gigantic Chilean flag.
Here we again entered into the La Moneda Cultural Centre because we wanted to buy a few things that we had seen on our first day in Chile all those days ago. It was a quick visit, and we didn’t see any of the exhibits again. Plus, it looks like they were under maintenance anyway.
We still have a bit of time, so we go towards the “back” of La Moneda towards Constitution Park. This is what most people would likely consider the “front” of La Moneda. Within this park we see the below statue, a statue of Salvador Allende.
From our understanding, it was from this direction that the planes bombed La Moneda on the 11th of September 1973. We’re not sure when this statue would have been erected, but we can guarantee it wasn’t until much after 1990, haha. And, on the side of the monument you can see part of the speech we told you about from within the cemetery, “Sooner than later, the great avenues will open once again where the free men will walk to build a better society.” As we previously mentioned, this is from a speech that was broadcast over the radio while Allende was inside La Moneda while being bombed by the Chilean air force. And then we went back to the other side of La Moneda to take a picture of the gigantic Chilean flag again with La Moneda in the background. You can’t really see it because of all the busses on the Alameda in front of La Moneda.
But with that we are done for the day. It is time to head back to get some food! We enter the subway and jump on. We miss our stop because we are riding the subway during rush hour and some subways skip certain stops to try to make the commute faster. We like the idea… if only we had known beforehand, haha. That’s fine though. We get off at the stop after the one we wanted and take the picture showing you the subway station.
As we had to walk a little bit more to get back to our accommodations, this allowed us to find even more public art. Nothing wrong with that! And maybe you recognize what these are from!
We still have quite a bit to walk, so we don’t stick around. As we walk we have San Cristobal Hill right in front of us.. and just in the distance you can see the Costanera Centre. The reason we take the picture is because that massive building used to be the tallest building in all of Latin America (still the tallest in South America). It is pretty massive, especially when you consider that we are probably about 3 kilometres away from the tower.
But enough walking. It seems like all we do is walk around. But… we also eat! And tonight we are having “un asado” (Chilean barbecue). As you can see there was a lot of meat! It was delicious! A nice way to end our day of walking around in Santiago! Have a good night from Santiago!
[As an aside… haha. We include the map to the Santiago General Cemetery here in case you are interested in doing the same type of visit we did and can’t find the map. We didn’t see it online and had to ask “random” men within the cemetery to get it. Enjoy!]
