Santiago, Chile

So we went to Santiago one afternoon to take Carolina's uncle to the airport. We only spent like two or three hours here but I liked Santiago. Pictured here is the building called La Moneda which is the seat of the President of the Republic of Chile. It occupies an entire block of the city. We were told that usually you can go inside the courtyard but for whatever reason, on this particular day we were not allowed to enter. It was surrounded by military types on horses. Carolina made sure to tell us about the bombing on September 11th, 1973 of La Moneda that partially destroyed the building. But final reconstructions on it were completed in 1981 (with a passageway built underneath in case Pinochet, or any subsequent Presidents, needed to flee). I also took a picture of San Martin, one of the two men monumentalized in Chile for their contributions to Chilean independence from Spain (the other is Bernard O'Higgins...I know, that name is so not Chilean sounding because it isn't!). O'Higgins was of Irish and Basque descent and he was the second Director of Chile from 1817-1823. He was born in Chillan, which is a little city that we spent one night in during our travels to Southern Chile.

After walking around for a while, we headed off to my favorite part of the day (and one of the highlights for me of the entire three weeks in Chile): the pre-Columbian museum of art in Santiago! Once inside this museum with capacious rooms filled with ancient artworks, I was anxious with excitement and awe (but that didn't last too long because no one I was with was very excited about it; they were interested but not like I was!). I came across a few ceramic figures from the Jama Coaque culture of ancient Ecuador. I had never even heard of them but I almost instantaneously loved their ceramic figures (the Jama Coaque figures are the one who is playing a flute and next to him is a warrior with half his face painted green). I loved this museum!

I have to say that when I found out that Santiago had a pre-Columbian museum of art, I wasn't quite sure what to expect because they said that they had a nice collection of Mesoamerican art. I was wondering why (and how) this museum all the way down in Chile could have these things. But I was pleasantly surprised because I loved so many of these pieces!! They had ceramics from the Maya, the Maya stela pictured here (monolithic rock carving), ceramics and masks from central Mexico, Maya figurines from Jaina (one of the pictures below), and so many other works of art. They even had a nice textile wing of the museum! But most of the pictures I took of the textiles did not come out because the lighting was extremely low and it's difficult in normal museum lighting to be able to get great photos. But I really did enjoy this museum!!

Four of these five photos show artworks from the Moche people of the northern coast of Peru. The Moche styles of artworks (particularly the ceramics) lasted from the 1st century CE until the 8th century CE. I was really excited to see these ceramics because I had just completed a paper on the Decapitator deity of the Moche. The last two ceramic vessels are "fineline" painted and you can see why. The only vessel (the one with two bodies without heads) that is not Moche is from the Nazca culture which pre-dates the Moche by a little (from about the 1st century BCE until the 7th century CE). The Nazca culture flourished on the southern coast of Peru and are most famous for the enormous geoglyphs that they carved into the landscape. I love the abstracted depictions of peoples and mythological creatures painted on the Nazca ceramics.

Then we went to the top of Cerro de San Cristobal which I must say, delivers quite a spectacular panoramic view of the city. We rode the "funicular" (a kind of cable car type of thing) up to the top of this hill. Surrounded by the Andes mountains, Santiago is a rather large, spread-out kind of city. We only spent a few hours here but I liked it. However, I'm realizing that I am no longer a big city person. I really appreciate wide open spaces without a continuous skyline of buildings on top of more buildings. After taking a few photos, we walked up a lot of steps to get a close-up of La Virgen Inmaculada Concepcion. She is quite large as you can see and she has the best view of Santiago.