santiago backpacking

Santiago Airport – Visas and information

I flew into Santiago from Auckland flying LAN Chile. Santiago airport is easy to navigate. If you require a Visa, make sure you keep your eye out for the booth to purchase your Chilean visa. There will usually be quite a few people lining up so you won’t miss it.

There is also a handy information booth before you exit customs. And they speak English as well. Its good to find out where the bus is and confirm which bus you need to take to get to where you are going. You can also pick up the obligatory tourist information as well.

Where to stay in Santiago

La Casa Roja is a great hostel in Santiago. Its a large jovial hostel which is easy to meet people. It can be rather noisy at times but when everyone is part of the party, you can’t expect it to be quiet. The pool is great to relax in during summer. Its a well maintained and well run hostel with a good location in Barrio Brazil, Santiago.

From the airport, you can take a local bus to Los Heroes. La Casa Roja is a short walk from there (about 6 blocks). Transfers are available for about 4200 pesos and a taxi from the airport will cost about 12,000 pesos. Stick to the bus. It's cheap and you can get an idea of your bearings of Santiago.

Los Heroes, Santiago - street food

Each night, street vendors appear on the main street in Los Heroes. Make sure you spend an hour or two simply walking up and down the main street sampling all the food from the street vendors. It is very cheap and you can be adventurous about the local food. You’ll never know what great food you’ll come across. Empanadas and Completos are a plenty as well as many other delights.

Cerro San Cristobal, Santiago

Cerro San Cristobal gives you a great overall view of Santiago from a height of 870 metres. You can take the funicular/cable car up or you can walk. We ended up walking because it was a nice day and I must say that it was quite a pleasant walk. At times, the walk is rather interesting requiring you to pull yourself up a rather steep rocky path by a rope. Good fun. The walk is worth it with the views.

Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, Santiago

If you are interested in the Mayans and Inca history, make sure you visit this museum. It is truly fascinating and full of history from 4500 years ago. Unfortunately I was rather hung over when I visited the museum so I didn’t get the full experience. You probably want to visit when you are in a mood to respect what you are looking at and learn about the history. But it is well worth it nonetheless and highly recommended.

Chilean beer

Escudo is the standard drop of choice in Chile.  A clean crisp lager beer which I can keep on drinking all night. This is the reason why I didn’t get the most out of Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino.

Time of year

November is not quite summer in Chile but it is still very warm. Santiago is a city surrounded by mountains so it tends to retain the heat. Once the sun comes out, it remains warm.

Getting around Santiago

Santiago is a rather compact city so you can walk around most places. It is a good city to just walk around and look at the people and surroundings. Otherwise you can take buses or the metro system which is quite efficient from what I hear. I walked around everywhere so can’t comment too much on the public transport available.

jafatravel visited Santiago in November 2005.

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© Jafa Travel Pty Ltd 2008