Well… we call it a travel “day,” but, we will still enjoy our remaining time in Egypt first, you’ll see. And we also call it “day” because… what a looooooong “day”. Again, you’ll see what we mean, haha. Anyway, on with the show!
Today we woke up for the very last time in Egypt. So sad. Although we have complained (a lot), we have also had a very nice visit in Egypt. We will definitely miss waking up to this view though. You can even see that my travel partner is still in bed! Hehe.
Well… I say he’s still in bed, but that’s not actually true. We have to leave the hotel today, so he’s already been up for a while packing and re-packing, getting ready, and planning how to spend our day today. Our flight out of Egypt isn’t until later this evening, so we have some time. He has a plan… but we need the hotel to allow it to happen, haha. Let’s go up for breakfast and see what they say, fingers crossed!
We have to eat quickly… but we can’t exactly hurry the process of taking pictures. We have to absolutely take our last chances at looking at the pyramids as much as we can. It will no longer be a daily occurrence for us to look on these wonders of the world. So we switch from our regular camera to see just how clearly we can actually see these wonders from here.
Alright, now we have to drag ourselves away from this view to focus on our day. We eat a big, delicious breakfast as we have done every morning here while talking to the staff. Usually it’s just small talk, but today we ask if we can check out late, hehe. At first they don’t want us to check out late because we already had some “issues” when we extended our stay and we chose to do it through the website rather than in cash with them (it was cheaper online than what they offered). So they weren’t really happy about us asking to check out later, haha. But in the end they make some calls and finally agree to let us check out late. Perfect! We run downstairs, move some things around in our bag, and pretty much run out of the hotel! Haha. Where do we go…? There could only be one possibility, right? We know what we’re doing and it is still pretty early, so we have no problems and are immediately here:
Today is our third time visiting the Giza Plateau, hehe. Can you tell that we enjoyed it? We are both trying to go around slowly taking mental pictures and videos of everything to remember each little detail at the same time as going around very, very fast to see it all and be able to make it back to the hotel on time! A little bit of a conundrum, no?
Well, remember how both days we had been here before we couldn’t enter one place? The first day was because our “guide” was not very useful and didn’t listen to us and the second day was because we ran out of time. So today we will finally enter the Mers Ankh Tomb! Finally!
So, we remember learning that this was also called “the Architect’s Tomb,” but we have not been able to confirm that since we learned it, so we could be wrong… hopefully not…. Anyway, once inside it was a place that was absolutely packed with hieroglyphs. We will share a few of them with you now, hopefully you can make out what they are in these pictures.
We took many, many more… but these are the ones that are easiest to see here. But, it’s not only about the hieroglyphs, it’s also a tomb. So, how does a non-pyramidal tomb work? This is what it looks like inside.
And you can see where you must enter the tomb, it’s where you can see one person lower than the rest, and then you may notice someone almost out of sight. That person is entering the tomb! We don’t usually try to take pictures of people, but these two had their backs to us and it really shows how much of a squeeze it is to get down into the tomb. It was fun getting down there!
And presumably that was a “false door” above the tomb. Maybe this would have been completely sealed off. Who knows if the tomb was opened by grave robbers or after exploration by more modern archeologists. It’s moments like these that would be great to have an Egyptologist as a guide. Either way, down we go!
At the bottom we see a sarcophagus, and we actually showed you the people out of order. All of those people came to visit the tomb as we were leaving, so no one else was down here while we were here. We had the place to ourselves!
Then it was time to leave the tomb. As we were leaving we were again taking pictures of some of the hieroglyphs right at the entrance. The attendant that checks your tickets offered to take a picture of my travel partner. He politely said no, that it was okay, but the attendant insisted. Fine… He stands beside the hieroglyphs, the guy takes a picture and then tells my travel partner to touch the hieroglyphs. What?! So strange… The pictures the attendant takes are terrible. He centres my partner in the picture, but that means that the hieroglyphs are definitely not entirely visible. All around bad picture taking skills, haha. And then he asks for money! Hahaha. We absolutely couldn’t leave Egypt without someone else asking for a bit of money. We just laugh, say no, and walk away. Our final Egyptian experience? Only time will tell, haha.
What do we do next? Walk around the Great Pyramid!
As we’re walking around some of the vendors want pictures with my travel partner after they see him taking pictures of me, haha. Who knows why… they don’t take the pictures, they just ask my partner to take selfies with them, haha. A little funny. We take our opportunity to look out over Giza, and what we believe will be the site of the newest museum, the Grand Egyptian Museum.
You can kind of see the structure that we believe will be the new museum just behind the guys that are also looking at the same thing. This is the museum we’ve told you about that didn’t exist while we visited, but will definitely exist by the time you’re reading this. This museum will be the new home of many of the artifacts we saw on this trip, so our “guide” will not be accurate as soon as it is published. But, we’re just capturing a moment in time.
Now we’re back towards the Mers Ankh Tomb, and we visit where they discovered several boats buried, most likely to take the pharaohs to the after life. It’s too bad they don’t have one here for you to see exactly what was buried here, instead we can just use our imagination with all of these holes.
Well… it’s time to start heading back towards the hotel… our time in Egypt is slowly coming to an end. How do we pull ourselves away from these pyramids though?
We take the opportunity to film just a bit more, and then start walking down off of the Giza Plateau. Our third time visiting the pyramids allowed us to finish the site off (we think) and have some great memories with some great pictures.
As you expect after our other two visits, we finish our visit to the Giza Plateau by visiting the Sphinx.
As always, we enter through Khafre’s Valley Temple. We’re still relatively early, so there aren’t too too many people. The earlier you arrive, the less people there are.
But, this is the Sphinx and the Great Pyramids, obviously we weren’t alone, haha. It’s just the way the pictures are taken. But, it’s definitely not as packed as just before the closing of the Plateau. By a long shot.
Now we actually leave, we walk away from the Sphinx and enter the market. There aren’t many people leaving the pyramids this early… but we still find ourselves next to a Brazilian tour group so that the vendors don’t approach us one-on-one, haha. It works! But the vendors even know how to sell things in Portuguese and the conversion rates for reais (Brazilian money), haha. We take a look at the seating where we watched the light show from a few nights ago as we exit as well.
And our final look…
That’s our visit to the pyramids for the day! Now my partner pretty much has to run. There are ten minutes before the time we told the hotel we would check out, uh oh. Luckily we’re only a few blocks away! But, it will be made much slower if my partner stops to take too many more pictures, haha. We just had to record the people that are still queuing to buy their tickets while we’re already on our way out!
As we enter the hotel the lady that we had asked for more time reminds us of the time we had agreed and my partner says “yes, yes, we’re just grabbing our things!” and runs upstairs. He quickly changes some things over in the bags and finishes getting ready for the long trip ahead. We just barely have enough time to take one final look at the pyramids from our hotel before it is all gone for a very long time.
This picture was taken with exactly six minutes left before we had to exit the hotel. We managed it! Haha. We go downstairs to tell the hotel we have checked out. They kindly ask us if we need them to hire a car for us, but we politely decline because doing it through an app is much cheaper than doing it through the hotel. The car arrives in no time and we’re off! Soon we’re out of Giza and driving around Cairo. Unfortunately for us, it seems like the quickest route is not anywhere near Cairo, so after skipping over the Nile we avoid Cairo completely.
Just as when we arrived we are shocked at the number of (what looks like to us) political ads on the side of the road. Everywhere you look you can see President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. When we arrived we had asked our driver if it was election season and he was very confused, haha. It’s just a regular thing here, we’re just not used to it back home and we didn’t see too much of that throughout the other countries we have been to (except a few signs in Jeddah showing you what works the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia was financing).
Soon though we see the sign for the airport. We’re caught off guard and just miss the sign, but we can sort of see it and we will explain, haha. The road that we are on really took us through the “middle of nowhere”. For much of the ride it seemed like there was just absolutely nothing around us other than desert. So, we weren’t prepared for a sign in the middle of seemingly nothing, haha. But…. you can see that that is changing in the picture on the right above with the construction that is visible.
We arrive at the airport and then it is time to kill some time. We didn’t have anywhere to store our things at the hotel, so instead we chose to just come to the airport much earlier than needed. Give my partner some time to kill, and he will take pictures. So, this is the outside of the airport, haha. (This post will just get long and not as interesting as museums about Ancient Egypt from days past, sadly).
My partner is in zero rush, so we just walk around the airport before even checking in. But, eventually, he gives in and goes to our counter. We have to fill out some paperwork and show proof of vaccination (not sure for which country because we believe none of them require it) and then we are given a new document to fill out. It’s similar to the document we filled out upon our arrival to Egypt. We love how proud Egypt is of their ancient history, so much so that they even put it on official travel paperwork!
We’re quickly through security and it is time to explore the airport. As you have seen in our past airport experiences, we typically try to show you some typical art of the country as airports love to put art up to let us pass the time. But, as we just said, Egypt is very proud of their history… so instead of “regular art,” Cairo has a full on museum in its airport. Is there a better way to kill time at an airport in Egypt? We think not.
Of course we immediately set out to find the Cairo International Airport Museum, and it does not take long. But, weirdly enough, there isn’t anyone else there! So weird. We pretty much visit the entire museum alone, and just as we were finishing up our visit a family came in. We know that there are passengers around because we saw them all lining up at the check-in desks downstairs and we saw them shopping… but maybe they don’t want to come up here for some reason? Who knows. But anyway, let us start showing you some things!
This is a very good opening from this small museum. First up on the left we have a replica of the Rosetta Stone and they immediately tell you that the original is in the British Museum, haha. As we have mentioned before, Egypt really wants its treasures back under their own control to be able to display them as they see fit, but the British Museum refuses to (and there’s actually a law against them returning stolen artifacts). The stone dates back to 196 BCE and it is a letter of thanks from a group of priests to King Ptolemy V for exempting the temples from paying some taxes. The important thing is that the same message was written in hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek. Why? Because the temples used hieroglyphic script in their religious practices, demotic script was the script that the common people could read and understand, and Greek was the language of government administration since the time of Alexander the Great. Once this was discovered, it allowed ancient hieroglyphs to be deciphered and understood for the first time. And, like today, much of this deciphering was possible because the name “Ptolemy” (the king) is a proper name and it was assumed that it would not change much between the scripts. Very cool!
The second in the middle is a statue of a scribe from 2494-2345 BCE that was discovered in Giza. Interestingly, the sign suggests that this was not a statue of an actual scribe, but rather of a high official that wanted to be depicted as a scribe for their tomb/burial. This was common practice during the Old Kingdom. You can also see writing tools around the scribe. The third thing on the right we include because we think that it is very cool to have inclusivity, especially at museums. We have noticed this in a few museums while on our travels. Very cool!
Next up is a funerary papyrus of the priest Pak-en-Mut, a priest of the god Amun from Thebes. The priest’s name actually translates to the “servant of Mut”. Without actually going to the museum yourself, it is very hard to show the details on this papyrus. We will just show off two highlights, you can see that the dimensions don’t really work well with a modern camera, I suppose the Egyptians didn’t plan on that (sarcasm).
The first highlight (below, left) is actually the middle part of the above papyrus. It shows the sun barges of the sun-god during his nightly descent into the underworld. Remember that we learned that the scarab beetle was also representative of the sun as it rolls across the sky, and we can see the scarab beetle within the sun on the sun barge. The second highlight (below, right) is also the second part of the above papyrus (read from right to left) and it depicts Pak-en-Mut giving various offerings to eleven gods of the Necropolis. Interestingly, each of these gods are depicted in their mummy form with animal heads as they await their offerings in front of the altar. Super interesting.
And then we saw a mummy. Like we’ve mentioned before, there is something about mummies that makes us hesitate to take pictures of them, so we don’t. Probably knowing that they were humans at one point. Either way, we take a close look and the sign explains mummification in a way we had not heard of yet, even having gone to so many museums both in Egypt and elsewhere for other Egypt exhibits. Of course we will tell you about it.
As you probably know, and how we have told and shown you, Egypt is a country that is mostly desert with the Nile creating a green delta the length of the river. (For accuracy, it also has other oases and coastal cities, haha). Well, when someone dies in these dry conditions, bodies are naturally well preserved. So, it is believed that the people from the Pre-dynastic Period would have obviously noticed this and would have determined that this preservation was normal and was probably what their gods wanted. However, once the ancient Egyptians started carrying out burial practices that were a little more elaborate (like stone-lined underground burial chambers) the bodies would no longer be naturally preserved. They then needed to create the process of embalming and mummification to be able to preserve the bodies of the dead while continuing their more elaborate burial practices.
We thought this was brilliant. We had never heard it laid out like this, but it makes total sense. See? We’re even able to learn some interesting facts in a small airport museum. Why don’t more airports have this?! Haha.
Our last look at Ancient Egypt were these statues. They range in age from 1473 to 404 BCE.
Since we’ve been to so many museums, and you’ve been right along with us, we should all know that the next time period is the Greco-Roman period. Other museums had more artifacts than this airport museum, but this museum had more information than we had previously seen about this time period. Again, we just have to share it because it is so cool to us.
On the sign it pretty much suggests that the time period begins with Alexander the Great dying in 323 BCE, when his empire is divided between his generals. That’s how Ptolemy I got control over Egypt and founded the Ptolemaic kingdom. During this time Alexandria is the capital of Egypt and it is a Greek-styled city that has many important landmarks, some of which you may have previously heard of like the famous lighthouse, library, and Alexander’s tomb. Egypt was then incorporated into the Roman Empire, and this would last until the Arab/Islamic conquest in 641 CE, which is where it has remained until this day. The Roman period seems to be a little less fondly remembered as Egypt was used as a “grains-basket” for the empire, and it was heavily taxed which led to a reduction in prosperity. At the same time the Roman Empire started viewing Christianity as a big threat to it and this was manifested in Egypt through Diocleitian’s hostility. His rule would go on to be named the “Age of Martyrs” and is considered the beginning of the Coptic Calendar.
There are a number of statues related to this time period on display here. On the left we have the statue of Nesmnw, the son of the priest of Montu from the Ptolemaic Period (332-30 BCE). The statue is a symbol of personal piety. On the right we have numerous statues of Isis suckling Horus, a bust of Zeus, the winged goddess Isis, and a statue of Harpokrates.
Within the same time period we have a mummified man with his funerary mask (1st to 2nd century CE). We always find funerary masks to be so intricate and beautiful. Even more so when you consider just how long these amazing colours have lasted.
And the last object we will show you is an icon of Saint George (18th-19th CE) from the Copts. We don’t learn any additional information about the Copts while visiting this museum, but that may also show how much we’ve learned from all of the other museums already. And of course we again highlight the inclusivity.
With that, we are done the Cairo International Airport Museum. If you’re flying out of Cairo (which you likely are if you’re in Egypt) you should definitely stop by. Much better than just walking around in circles in the duty free shop, haha. Highly recommended!
And they even wished us a happy Valentine’s Day, haha. How sweet!
So now we do the typical thing of just walking around in circles as we wait to take our flight out of the country. And although we weren’t asked when going through security… we remember reading that there was a limit as to how much cash in Egyptian pounds you could leave the country with. And it was a very small amount, so we bought a few souvenirs here at the airport to both have some souvenirs but also to spend some of our cash. But we can only look at the shops for so long, haha. Eventually my travel partner starts to get tired of looking at the same things, but I tell him to keep walking so that he’s tired for the flight! Hehe. But then it’s finally time to get going.
As you may have noticed from our Sphinx paperwork up above, we are flying to Germany next. Back to where this trip first started as we made our way to Kuwait! It feels like so long ago! Well, it has been just over two full months, so I suppose that it was a long time ago, haha. We walk out onto the plane taking our last looks at Egyptian tourism posters and a welcome into a German plane.
We step onto the plane and that’s that. We’re done with our trip to the Middle East, and we’re about to leave Africa. We have had a lot of fun and we have seen some great things that we won’t soon forget. All around, amazing! We’re leaving quite happy, even if this trip will be quite long, haha. But… we know you thought we were signing off, but not even close, hehe. Remember, we said that the “day” in “travel day” was very misleading… so we continue on!
We soon take off and you can see what we were talking about earlier… Egypt is very much a desert country. Well, pretty much all of the countries we visited this trip were like that. So very different from our area of the world where this would be green forests or green grass (in the summer, right now it’s probably all white snow, hehe). And then we think we see the reason why we wanted to sit by the window! We see water! Now… that must be the Nile, right? But it seems too perfectly straight… It’s definitely not the Suez Canal because we didn’t fly in that direction… It must be the Nile!
Well, the flight is pretty uneventful. My partner is absolutely glued to the window just looking down as we fly. We also take the opportunity to discuss what we will tell you about our past adventures as we decide what to write in one of our older blog posts. Eventually the sun starts to go down and we take in a sunset while flying high above the clouds.
As we fly over Eastern Europe it really hits us that we are out of the Middle East. No more shawarmas. No more Arabic. No more call to prayer. No more desert. So weird to think about, haha. And to top it all off… we’re leaving a part of the world where “cold” is about 10°C to a place that is likely in the negatives with a windchill even lower… and snow instead of sand… Haha. This will be a shock to the system!
The flight was fine. Apart from looking outside my travel partner spoke to an Argentinian mother that was returning to Argentina from Egypt with her family. They had also been visiting Egypt. They were a bit stressed that our plane had left a little late out of Cairo because their plane to Argentina had a tight connection and they couldn’t miss it. We wished them luck, but soon enough we land in Germany! Welcome to Europe!
We get off the plane in a hurry because we also have a short connection, but we make it with time to spare. We essentially check to make sure we can find our gate and that we have not started boarding and then we start walking around the terminal, haha. My travel partner cannot sit still to save his life! Haha. We essentially walk the entire terminal from end-to-end at least twice. Luckily we had been to this exact terminal on our way to Kuwait, so we knew where everything was. But, unlike when we were on our way to the Middle East, everything is closed now except for the duty free store, of course. Here we see the Argentinian family again and the mother presents us to the rest of the family, but we just say hello and each go our own ways. It’s only 9 pm… it’s very weird that everything is closed. And there are a lot of people waiting around for their flights. Especially those that are waiting to get on this big plane, hehe.
Well, our short time is Europe has already come to an end! Haha. We get on this plane and head to our seat. This will be a looooooong flight. Remember that we already did a four and a half hour flight, then had less than two hours off of the plane, and now we’re getting onto another plane that will take 13 and a half hours. Why so long? Well… that Argentinian family weren’t the only ones that were worried about missing their plane to Argentina! Let’s buckle in tight, because the next stop is the home of the 2022 World Cup champions!!!
Can you tell how excited I am? I’m smiling from ear to ear. Even though the World Cup finished about two months ago, we’re still on our “World Cup trip,” so let us enjoy this, haha. On the flight we’re seated next to an Argentinian couple from Barcelona who are going back to visit their family. We had a great flight talking to them a bunch. They couldn’t believe that we had been at the World Cup and we were only just returning, haha. And they told us how all of the Argentinians in Barcelona had celebrated the World Cup glory. It was definitely a nice flight next to them. We talked until the food came, then we all ate and it was time for some sleep. Good night from… probably still over Europe at this point..? Or maybe we’re already over Algeria? We don’t know, the sky is black outside, haha.
But… you know we don’t cut our travel days in half, so we will continue. Sleeping on the plane was fine, nothing to tell about that, but we wake up to this:
My clock says that we woke up to this at 9:07 am, and we must have just started to pass over Brazil at this point. Another country that is legendary at the World Cup. (Can you tell we’re excited??) But… it’s 9:07 am Germany time. We’re now far, far away from Germany (we would eventually realize that the time difference was 4 hours). We close our eyes again and don’t wake up for another hour or so to breakfast.
And that means that we’re getting close to our destination! Well, we think we are super close because once the clouds part and we can see below us we see these two sights one right after the other.
Do you see the coastlines? Based off of the coastline and our destination we would guess that we are crossing over the Rio de la Plata and that on our left is Uruguay and on our right is Argentina. Wow. We had never been here before, so we are quite happy. And to think, the World Champions just did a similar flight two months ago when millions of people were waiting for them in the heart of Buenos Aires. Wow. (Can you tell we’re obsessed with football (soccer)?)
We touch down in Argentina! We’re here! We say bye to our neighbours as they head off to northern Argentina. But our trip isn’t done just yet… We have to stay in here for the next three hours, haha. At least there’s a lot of space to get comfortable, ha.
And this is when we realized the time difference. The picture of the Lufthansa plane above was taken with a timestamp of 12:41 while the picture of the waiting area was timestamped at 8:59. We guess waking up over Brazil was very early in South American time, haha. But whatever, we’re in a new time zone, a new country, and a new continent. It’s just too bad we don’t have enough time to actually leave the airport and step on actual Argentinian soil. But this is when it really starts to hit us that we’re somewhere completely different. After two months of not understanding almost a single word anywhere because we don’t speak any Arabic, suddenly we understand absolutely everything. It’s almost a sensory overload, haha. My travel partner is actually in shock.
What do you expect my travel partner to do for three hours? Obviously walk around. We cover the entire airport a few times. The store owners probably start to recognize us, haha. It really feels like we’re the only ones in the entire airport other than their own staff. We see one other passenger over here, another over there, but not much more than that. I guess it’s too early for Argentinians to be traveling. But that’s fine. We buy some World Cup memorabilia in one store, because how could we not? Haha. South America is home to the beautiful game after all, hehe. And you can tell that they absolutely love their beautiful game here. We wouldn’t normally show advertisements here… but how could we not? You can celebrate the World Cup champions when getting fast food, haha.
But eventually we walk around in circles enough that we just sit and wait for our next flight. Now do you see why “day” is in quotation marks? It’s already been over 24 hours since we left our hotel in Cairo. And we’re about to get onto our next plane to continue our journey.
Of course we get the window seat again, hehe. And we even traded seats so that a woman and her father could sit together. But, we of course made sure that we still got the window. We absolutely could not not get a window seat for what we were about to fly!
Let’s go!! We get a little snack while on the flight, and then we just look outside. My partner is literally transfixed on the ground just watching how we go from busy urban centre, to green pastures, to dry land.
Well… the reason he is so focused is because we had never done this flight before and he was excited to see this:
These are the Andes mountains. This is the longest continental mountain range in the world! So cool! And although we’re in the middle of the summer… it is a little worrying that there is very little snow on the mountain tops. Only the tallest peaks are still covered in snow. And, for the record, the Andes also have the tallest mountains in the world after the Himalayas. Eventually we can even see the Aconcagua over in the distance, the tallest mountain of the Andes. So cool. And, interestingly, we were warned when we were about to pass over the Andes and told to sit down and put our seat belts on because the air currents could be unpredictable while flying over this mountain range.
It it actually absolutely gorgeous and impressive to be flying over the Andes. Our seat selection was included… but we would definitely pay extra (and recommend you do the same) to guarantee a window seat while flying across the Andes. 100% worth it. Wow, wow, wow.
After looking out over the Andes the mountains suddenly start to get a little smaller and then disappear and then it is immediately announced that we will be landing. Why so quickly? Well, because we have arrived to our “final” destination! Welcome to Santiago, Chile!
So, we are finally done flying! We do security where they take our Saudi dates because they had the pits in them. So sad, but we understand. Chile is a very skinny country sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes mountains. This means that its borders are naturally protected from natural pests that exist elsewhere in the world, and they take “extreme” measures to ensure that it stays that way. Some Saudi dates that have almonds in the centre pass without a problem. We did ask if we could taste the dates before they threw them out… but they said no, haha. After security we go to the ATM to take some cash out just before exiting the airport. One problem… we didn’t notice that the bank machine didn’t return our card… This led to my travel partner freaking out a bit once he realized, but he quickly cancelled the card and just kept going with his life, haha.
The next steps of the trip are without pictures, which is very weird for us, we know. But I think my partner is a little tired and out of it. But, we leave the airport and say no to all of the taxis that are waiting to take you wherever you want to go. In front of the airport, just after you leave the secure zone there are busses that will take you wherever you’d like to go in Santiago. The most common are Pajaritos (a metro station) or the bus terminal. If you’re staying in Santiago, Pajaritos is a good choice. You can buy the ticket directly in front of the bus as there is a ticket counter right there. We are not staying in Santiago because our travel “day” will continue, so we go straight to the bus station/terminal. Even though we just went from the airport terminal to the bus we realize that the temperature in Santiago in the middle of the summer is much hotter than Egypt in the winter, and we can’t even compare with Germany in the winter, haha.
After a short bus ride we arrive to the terminal (last stop). We go to the basement and drop our luggage off at storage where they will hold it until later on today, and the whole process is quick and easy to use. There is also free wifi in the terminal, so we use it to cancel my travel partner’s bank card. We then went up to the main floor to buy our bus ticket to our next (and final) destination. Buying the ticket is quick and easy and we’re done in no time. The terminal we’re in is mostly Turbus, but there are other options. You can also cross the street to the second terminal where other companies operate and it may be a little cheaper, but this is the nicer terminal so here we stay, haha. This is also where we buy a SIM card for Chile. The plans are cheap and easy to use, it’s just weird that you can’t do this directly in the airport, but whatever, it’s done! Now… we have about 5 hours to kill before our bus leaves… Of course we don’t stay in the bus station all that time. Luckily for us, the bus terminal/station is also attached to the metro, so off we go!
We go down into the metro station Universidad de Santiago and ride the metro to the Los Heroés metro station. Why did we get off here? Because this could be considered as “downtown” Santiago. It is where many important buildings are located, including the Palacio de La Moneda. Also known as La Moneda, this building is the seat of the Chilean president with another three cabinet ministers. But, if you speak Spanish you may be wondering why the governmental palace is called La Moneda which translates to “The Coin” or “The Money.” This is because this used to be the Chilean mint, but it hasn’t printed money since 1929. You used to be able to enter La Moneda, but that is no longer possible, apparently. My travel partner asked a police officer outside and he looked at my partner as though he was dumb, haha. Well, let’s just take some pictures, haha.
For the record… there is a fence all around the palace, its just that the magic of social media makes it look like there isn’t, hehe. But, just behind my travel partner is a massive Chilean flag. Maybe not quite like the one we saw in Jeddah, but still impressively big.
Okay… we’re not allowed to visit the palace… but the officer did say that we could visit below La Moneda. Hmmm… of course we have to check that out! So, just to either side of the Palace you can descend below La Moneda to El Centro Cultural La Moneda (Cultural Centre La Moneda).
We enter and for some unknown reason we get lucky today, there’s no entry fee! Hehe. Not a bad way to start our visit in Chile. We still need to stop at the front desk and get our tickets and we get a bit of information about what we can see before heading in. Looks like we have quite a bit to check out!
Before we begin we will just remind you that for us we are still operating under our travel “day” because we have not reached our final destination, but this post is beginning to get comically long. We’re sorry, haha. But, it will get longer as we enter the cultural centre.
First thing’s first, we begin along the outside of the first floor to look at some works of art. We believe (but aren’t sure) that this is a temporary exhibit. As we say that… we’re not actually sure if anything in the cultural centre is permanent. So…. check out our reviews and then let us know if anything is still there next time you visit! Haha.
We will go from left to right above, with the first being a sculpture by Pamela Iglesias. The artist modeled the sculpture on a European doll from the nineteenth century, but with a twist of including the life-sized objects considered to be “for women” commenting that things have not changed too much in the past 200 years. Next up is Makuñ by Bernardo Oyarzún. The makuñ is a traditional Mapuche blanket, typically with these sorts of artistic designs (the Mapuche are the biggest indigenous group within Chile). The final art installation is Hacer Agua (Make Water) by Máximo Corvalán-Pincheira. This artwork is symbolic of the coup d’état that Chile suffered in 1973. During the 1973 coup La Moneda was bombarded by the Chilean armed forces. Therefore, this art installation was built specifically for this location. As the water runs from the above Moneda it rusts the metal installation, which is supposed to symbolize that the memory of these tragic events (along with the entire military dictatorship) cannot be held back, even with the flow of time. (We will likely see other monuments dedicated to these events, so we will give a bit more background with those objects).
Now we start actually going into specific exhibits. The first is an exhibition about Danish illustrations in children’s literature, it is called “Once upon a time… in Denmark”.
Well, although you may think that it is pretty random to have a Danish exhibit in Chile, we bet that you know a lot of stories from Danish children’s literature. Of course the most famous are the stories of Hans Christian Andersen and the illustrations of Vilhelm Pederson that accompanied them. Many of the themes in these stories were considered taboo before these stories were published. Have you ever read (or watched) the Little Mermaid, the Ugly Duckling, or Thumbelina?
Maybe Hans Christian Andersen is the most famous Danish author for children, but he is not the only one. In the 1960s the government of Denmark wanted to help children become harmonious and happy people, and to do that it promoted the creation of children’s literature, eventually creating the Best Children’s Book prize in 1967. This promotion of children’s literature has continued until this day where there have been many children’s books and characters created over the years. Maybe we should check some of these stories out! Do you know any Danish literature?
Next up is a store. We wouldn’t usually show pictures from inside of a store… but… we need to here, hehe. We think it will be immediately obvious why once we actually start to show you inside.
It is a store that sells Chilean handicrafts, with a focus on the indigenous people of Chile. Of course we had to enter, and if we entered you’re coming with us! Haha.
Although this is a store, at the same time it is an exhibition called “Persistence Through Craft”. This exhibition demonstrates the work of the indigenous people of Chile. Although we told you above that the Mapuche are the largest indigenous group in Chile, they are not the only ones. Within this exhibition/store there are works from all of the indigenous groups of Chile including the Aymara, Quechua, Colla, Diaguita, Mapuche, Kawésqar, Yagán, and Rapa Nui. The first placard explains that the indigenous people have maintained both their work and traditions even with many pressures/obstacles, be they environmental, territorial, economic, or legal. This sounds like the perfect way to spend some time while we wait for the bus this evening!
First up, we will start with the Mapuche. Here we have something (rastra lukutuwe) that is used during social and ceremonial activities to protect the kidneys of people when they are riding horses. As you can see, it is made from leather and silver. Although the Mapuche now live in the majority of Chile, they are traditionally from the southern region of La Araucanía, a region we hope to visit while in Chile.
And from a southern region, we will move towards the north in the region of Antofagasta where we find the Quechua. These gloves are made by mixing huallata (Andean goose) down feathers with llama wool. These feathers are found within the nests of the huallata, and to find them you need a vast knowledge of the Andean terrain as these nests are spread throughout the bofedales (Andean wetlands) in Chile’s north.
Going even further north to Colchane (close to the border with Bolivia), we find a Mallku Bistalla made by the Aymara. This work is made to carry the items needed to perform different Aymara traditions, where these can include lejía (lye) that is then mixed with coca leaves, which is common to the indigenous people of this region (along with the bordering countries). The bag is traditionally made from alpaca.
And from almost the northernmost point of Chile, we go to one of the southernmost points, Puerto Edén, where we find the Kawésqar. This is a small-scale replica of the netting that is used to hunt sea lions (Feičetqal). Yes, that is right, sea lions. You can imagine how much bigger this net must be to be able to catch and hold onto them. We’re not sure… but we would imagine that the sea lion would have to first be killed, because we can’t see how a net would hold such a big and powerful animal. But, maybe we’re completely wrong?
Throughout the store/exhibit it tells the story of the “persistence” of the indigenous people. How their traditions have persisted throughout their histories to the current day. However, the choice of the word “persisted” is deliberate within the exhibit because they stress that these art forms / traditions have not remained unchanged. One of the biggest changes of the past few years (they say) is that of changing geographic locations. Traditionally, these works would have been created within their respective indigenous communities throughout the length of Chile, but nowadays more and more indigenous people are finding themselves in urban centres. This has led to the need to incorporate different techniques and materials into their work. The examples they give are adapting their works to the wood that is common in the areas where they now reside or using clay from Pomaire instead of their traditional clay source in Cholchol.
However, as mentioned above, geography is not the only barrier that has been placed on the indigenous people and how they are able to continue their traditions. They have also been affected by human decisions. The easiest to illustrate is the Chilean government’s creation of various laws that have directly affected the ability of indigenous people to continue their traditions. First, laws governing endangered species. For example, although we showed you a Feičetqal above, these can only be used for decoration as sea lions are now a protected species within Chile. Second, laws protecting Chile’s biodiversity. As we previously described as we entered Chile, Chile is very careful about the importation of biological materials since it is pretty isolated from the “outside world” and the potential diseases that could enter the country on these biological materials. Therefore, indigenous people are not able to import leather and other such material to do their own traditions, making the raw material hard to find and/or expensive. Finally, speaking of potential diseases… during the coronavirus pandemic Chile’s borders were closed, leading to many raw materials spiking in price and becoming more scarce for the indigenous people that needed these materials to carry out their traditions. We leave it to you, dear reader, to judge the pros and cons of these laws as we have presented them to you here.
The final way that the indigenous people must “persist” in order to continue their traditions is semi-human, semi-natural. These would be environmental conditions, like the changing climate. Chile has been undergoing an extreme drought for many years, and this has led to a decrease in many of the species necessary for the indigenous people to continue their traditions. However, these are not all natural. An example that they listed was the environmental damage done by the mining industry and the forestry industry. The mining industry is pretty clear… with the forestry industry affecting the environment by both clear cutting and by mono cultures of both pine and eucalyptus trees.
For all of these reasons the exhibit was nicely titled as the “Persistence Through Craft”. Worth the visit if you want to think of it as a “museum” or “exhibit” and even more so if you want an interesting gift/souvenir from Chile.
Next up? An exhibit to show off the ancient technique of the printing press in a more modern context. Although the exhibit briefly describes the start of print in China (11th century) and the development of the printing press (~1440), it is still a technique that is regularly used throughout the world. This exhibit focuses on different printing “houses” around Latin America, and how these printed works would be seen on walls throughout the region. Let’s take a look (and try to translate where possible/necessary)!
So… let me tell you… there were way too many signs. WAY too many. So we will just show you a few here to not ridiculously increase the length of this one travel “day,” hehe. In order to see all of the signs, you can check out our Instragam (eventually). But, we will highlight some for you to just get a taste of what we saw.
On the left we have “It’s not about making windows but perforating walls” from Prensa La Libertad from Buenos Aires. On the right we have various signs that we will translate from left to right and top to bottom. “Be conscious of your power! Tomorrow could be transformational” from Prensa La Libertad (Buenos Aires), a poem from Laboratorio Artifice (Santiago) where the large text says “I am the People” and “Poetry is in the street!”, a poem saying “You will never have poetry on your side” (unspecified), “the struggle is a collective poem” from Prensa La Libertad (Buenos Aires), and finally “Walls are the printing press of the people” by Imprenta Rescate (Buenos Aires). Although we only showed this very small handful of signs, there was work from the above printing presses, Uruguay, Brazil, and other printing presses in Chile and Argentina.
As we said, look for more of these posters on our Instagram… some day, hehe. But, we have to keep moving if we want to be able to see all of this cultural centre. Just around the corner is a theatre that seems to show Chilean movies. However, no one is around while we’re here. So, we just walk around looking at the different posters from Chilean cinema. (We don’t actually know if they only show Chilean movies or not, but we imagine that at the very least they are “small scale” releases). Here we leave you with two examples from Chilean cinema.
Let’s keep on moving. As you can tell, there are a lot of different exhibits and rooms in this cultural centre. It seems to have a little bit of everything! It is actually perfect for someone waiting for an evening bus, haha. Next up? Ominous Familiarity.
Here we see a variety of photographs from a variety of artists. They all have different explanations, but we will only focus on two sets. The first is a series of photographs that were done by Luis Poirot de la Torre between 1971 and 2000. The work is titled La Moneda, and it is because they are of the building that this cultural centre is underneath of.
Now… we hope that the picture is clear enough to see what we will be talking about… but, here goes. As we mentioned when we were looking at the work of art Hacer Agua (Make Water) at the start of the cultural centre, Chile had a coup d’état on the 11th of September 1973. The whole coup “started” with an attack on La Moneda by the Chilean military where they eventually bombed the building with the then Chilean President Salvador Allende inside. Eventually this attack led to the taking of the government by the military where they maintained military rule over Chile until March of 1990. This is an extremely abbreviated version of what actually happened on the 11th of September 1973, but we will likely go into more details about the military dictatorship at various point throughout our visit to Chile as it is something that is still present throughout Chilean society until this very day. However, with this information you will be able to better understand the photographs above.
The artwork is actually a series of photographs of La Moneda, with the first being of Salvador Allende and his wife waving to the public in 1971. The second and third pictures do not have dates associated with them… but they must have been taken after 1973 because the same window from where the couple had been waving has been bombed and destroyed. The second picture shows the bombed out window while the third picture puts the destruction into context by showing the entire face of the building. Finally, the fourth picture shows the entire La Moneda wrapped in black while it was undergoing renovations in the year 2000, which the artist took as a symbol of La Moneda finally being able to mourn.
The next collection of photographs we will show you is called Post Cards. Throughout these pictures the artist, Jorge Gronemeyer Cisterna, purchased a bunch of post cards from the early 1900s that had to do with Chile, and put them into what may have been their “native” habitat.
We realize that the art is hard to see from the above picture, but it was a quite interesting work to us. The post cards were mainly of Selk’nam people who were indigenous to the extreme south of Chile and Argentina (think Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego). Because they were so far south, they were actually one of the last indigenous people to be contacted by European colonizers in all of South America in the late 1800s. However, the history of the Selk’nam (as many indigenous communities) is not a happy one as they faced extinction as farmers looked to kill them all in order to take control of their lands. This lead to the genocide of the Selk’nam people, and they were actually thought to have been completely killed and they were considered extinct in Chile until 2020. Not only were they hunted, but they were also taken to Europe to be placed in “Human zoos” that were in fashion at the time. One of the post cards actually has the picture of one such family that was taken to Europe, displayed in a “human zoo”, and then died soon after without returning to their homeland. Not a great story, but we can’t just gloss over the parts of history we don’t like either.
But, those were the two pieces that we wanted to focus on in the Ominous Familiarity exhibit. As you can see, there were a lot more pictures to be seen in this exhibition room. But, the show must go on! Next up, Observed Nature – Art and Landscape.
This cultural centre is really putting on an artistic show. We started with sculptures, then we showed you some written work with drawings, then we showed you some traditional indigenous handiwork, then we showed you different prints, then we showed you some posters to symbolize cinema, then we showed you photography, and now we’re moving onto paintings. We can’t be missing too many more mediums, can we?
This is a good sized exhibit, with a lot of paintings. We will try to be brief, but no promises. We will try to show you places that we are familiar with or will be visiting so that you can consider them as Easter eggs for the future, hehe. But, we will likely not give much information (if any) about these works of art. It’s better to just sit back and enjoy them, no?
So, in order, we have Landscape of Aconcagua (no date), Inside La Quinta Vergara (1885), A Gray Day in the South (1896), Miramar Beach (no date), Summer-goers of Reñaca (no date), Landscape of Viña del Mar (1885), and Ravine – Rio Bueno (1896). We’ve already highlighted the Aconcagua mountain to you as we flew into Chile, but the majority of these other places you can try to remember as we go along our travels throughout our time in Chile. But two other places that you should definitely remember are shown below with the Bay of Valparaiso (1891) and Panorama of Santiago (1914). It is absolutely insane to think of just how much these two places have changed since these paintings were made.
Well, as we’re finishing up we’d just like to make a quick observation, if we may. We were both very impressed to see the amount of people that were here visiting all of these exhibits. Although you can’t really tell from the below picture, there were a lot of people here. And not only that, the age range of people that were visiting ranged from high school to senior citizens. We saw young people on dates and parents with their older children. It was quite nice to see, and it caught our attention. It really speaks to the fact that when culture, art, or whatever you want to call it is available free of charge people will always come to enjoy it. We even talked to one father and son who had seen me taking selfies outside and then saw me repeating it inside again, haha.
Now it is on to our final exhibit. You can imagine that although the cultural centre has been incredible… my travel partner is starting to feel a little tired. Sleeping on a plane is not exactly the same as sleeping in a bed… But, we can’t stop yet.
This is the one exhibit that we don’t need to translate, hehe. As the name implies, this is an ode to field work. The exhibit focuses on all of the different meanings that that can entail by focusing on magazines, pictures, landscapes, videos, and many other forms of art that allow one to record what one sees in nature.
To be completely honest, this is exactly when the lack of sleep caught up to my travel partner. We looked at everything, honest, but we can only really give you information about the work in the upper right hand corner. The rest we stopped to read and watch… but we just couldn’t retain any more information. But, that being said, in the upper right corner they did a work that they built mini-floating greenhouses and let them loose on General Carrera Lake. The scenery is stunning with all of the marble caves. A little strange that the artist said that they weren’t sure where the greenhouses ended up, and that if they didn’t become shipwrecked they could still be floating with living things inside, haha.
But with that, we were done the Cultural Centre – La Moneda. It is definitely worth a visit. We get the feeling that the exhibits must rotate, but we can let you know if we ever visit again! (Or you can if you’re ever in the area, we’d love to hear about your visit!)
The time to go back to the bus station is getting nearer, but we still have time to walk around a bit. We leave la Moneda by walking back towards La Alameda and turn left. We start walking up and then start to see all kinds of posters on the walls. It reminds us of all of the posters that we saw in one of our exhibits! And it is exactly as one of the posters said, “the walls are the printing press of the people”.
As we keep walking up along La Alameda we see the Homage of the City of Santiago to Gabriela Mistral. The mural seems to depict Gabriela Mistral in the middle with one hand on a book and the other outstretched to a small child, while an indigenous woman and child are on the right and the working peasants are on the left. Below these peasants Gabriela Mistral is again present with her nephew Juan Miguel. The mural is actually massive, and it is hard to miss if you’re walking around in this area.
But, why? Who is Gabriela Mistral, and why would she have such a huge mural dedicated to her in the middle of Santiago? Well… (as always) we are no experts. But, we know enough to tell you that Gabriela Mistral is an extremely important poet, author, and educator in Chile. She was actually the first Latin American author to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1945! So, it makes sense that she would be celebrated and commemorated with this mural. And, just a bit further, we actually run into the Cultural Centre Gabriela Mistral. We don’t actually enter, but, we do take the picture of the “Mural of the Hug”. You know we can’t pass by nice “street” art.
We keep walking in the same direction and see a bunch of people dancing on the other side of the street. The music is bumping, and they’re all having a good time! Must be a regular occurrence, haha. We take a picture from the other side of the street just to show you, our dear reader, but we had to keep on walking along La Alameda.
Why do we just keep on walking and walking? Is there a point to this madness? Why doesn’t my travel partner just sit down and rest? Because we have things to show you! Haha. We are walking along La Alameda because we want to reach this. Now, here history/geography gets a little complicated… Why? Because below we will show you a picture of a square, and the name of this square is slightly up for debate. Slightly.
This is Plaza Baquedano/Plaza Italia/Plaza Dignidad. So, why all of the slashes? Because the officially recognized name of the square is Plaza Baquedano named after General Baquedano who’s remains were buried under his statue. But, “what statue?” you ask? That’s right, there is no longer a statue to General Baquedano at this square for reasons we will get into in a second. The second name is that of Plaza Italia. Even though Plaza Italia is technically the green square just to the left of this square, many people refer to it as Plaza Italia. And finally, Plaza Dignidad, or Dignity Square. And this is where we will talk about the missing statue, haha.
Do you remember our visit and explanation for Tahrir Square in Cairo? Well, this is Chile’s equivalent. In October 2019 protests began in Santiago when the metro fare was raised by 30 pesos (~5 cents) for students. At first the students protested, but they were met by “heavy-handed” police. The way that the police reacted led many more to join in on the protests, and in no time at all there were massive protests on the streets of Santiago. The protests quickly changed from “just” the rate hike of 30 pesos to a whole list of social demands that were eventually summed up as the “right to live in dignity,” and hence Plaza Dignidad. Eventually the protests would increase to the point that 2 million people were out on the streets in Santiago with many more in all of the other cities around Chile. This is even more impressive when you consider that the metro Santiago area has around 7 million inhabitants. As with many protests, these were met with a heavy hand by the police. Eventually the city, police, and government got tired of the people protesting at this square on top of General Baquedano’s statue and eventually removed it overnight, which is why there is just a base now. It was not entirely clear if his remains are still present or they had been previously moved. The protests continued for many weeks and months, with the largest occurring every Friday around Plaza Dignidad. The protest movement eventually subsided when everyone was ordered inside while the country closed down for the coronavirus pandemic. However, there are still traces of these protests to this day. First (off camera) we will say that there is still a large police presence in this area. Unlike Tahrir Square that has many government buildings around, we’re not sure what the police presence is meant to be protecting. But, secondly, the walls around Plaza Dignidad are still filled with artwork and graffiti from these protests as you can see from what used to be the entrance to the Baquedano Metro Station.
However, Santiago has always been a city that has murals up for different social causes, and one of the biggest easels for these murals has always been the banks of the Mapocho River.
Again, as was said in the Cultural Centre La Moneda, “the walls are the press of the people”. It is quite interesting to walk around Santiago and read all of the different posters and murals that have been painted to see what the people on the street are thinking. But, that’s enough! We can’t just keep wandering around forever. It’s time to get going. We go down into the metro station, and we are greeted by a reminder of the student protests. (And you can even see what the Baquedano statue used to look like).
Now, it’s time to jump on the metro and get back to the bus station.
We arrive in no time, take a picture of some “street” art, and then just sit down to wait for our time to leave.
We don’t actually have too long to wait, we timed it pretty perfectly. And!! Look outside! You can see that the sun is just starting to set and it is almost 9 pm! Thankfully our days got looooonger. In the Middle East the sun was setting around 6 pm since we were so close to the Equator. This gives us even more time to explore, hehe.
Well, the travel “day” continues as we get on our bus and try to get comfortable. We both fall asleep pretty quickly since we’re both quite tired. It is a comfortable ride and we don’t wake up until about 7 am the next morning. Although the above picture doesn’t show it, we have a window seat. So we’re woken up by the bus attendant because we are getting close to our stop. Looking outside we are greeted by the following view:
This is Lake Villarrica. It is a really big lake that is by the city of the same name and a volcano that also has the same name, haha. It doesn’t look so nice right now because it’s all cloudy and it is early, but you will hopefully get a better view of it later because we have arrived! Welcome to Villarrica!
(Alright, we think that this post is long enough… so we will cut it here since we have arrived at our final destination, haha. Our next post will begin our explorations of Chile’s southern regions!)