Last weekend I travelled to Santiago, on my way to Bolivia, for a two week tour here. Due to flight schedules I needed to leave the Falklands a week early to get to the start of the tour. A good thing, as it turned out, the weekly Latam flight was delayed 24 hours and left on Sunday instead of Saturday. I was remarkably calm (once I knew I was definitely on the revised flight) as it just meant I had 4 days in Santiago rather than 5.

I was looking forward to spending some time in Santiago, as previously I’ve only ever travelled through it and haven’t explored at all. I stayed fairly centrally in Lastarria in a hotel on the edge of a lovely park. Even though it is winter and the trees are in autumnal colour, I loved being able to gaze at them all the time I was in my room. Who knew that trees are so entrancing?

The park provided plenty of entertainment as the Santiaguinos take their array of dogs for regular walks. As it was winter, I was walking round without a jacket and the dogs and their owners were in their winter coats. The dogs are clearly much loved and were generally of the slightly scruffy mongrel variety but still had their best outdoor outfits on. Apparently in the past there were a lot of street dogs in Santiago, who were cared for by local people – perhaps it has gone one step further and the dogs have been adopted.

Santiago was a bit of a surprise – Chile is a country with a deserved reputation for being safe to travel in and economically prosperous. However the historic centre of Santiago has taken a hammering due to serious and long running protests in 2019 and continued disquiet about the political direction of the country now. The visible result is that every building’s ground floor is covered in graffiti, heavy duty security barriers are in place and department stores have protected their windows, even during the day. The centre is dirty and grimy and there are a lot of street vendors selling relatively little on the sides of the streets. Some things which are recommended in older tourist guides, are now not safe for tourists and local guides will not take people there – for example the central fish market and its restaurants.

I went on a street art tour – which was fascinating and I saw some beautiful work but this was contrasted by huge amounts of graffiti and also political protest art – for example images of this black dog – whose nickname was Matapacos – which translates as Copkiller. I don’t think the dog actually killed policemen but he regularly took part in street protests in around 2013 and was famous for attacking policeman. The image is popular and frequently used but has also become controversial as crime has increased and police deaths more frequent – 3 policemen were killed in Chile in April in separate incidents – and the control of crime has become a hot political topic.

Politics in Chile are also volatile at the moment – the 2019 protests were really only stopped by the start of the pandemic. The unhappiness at the government led to a win for their opposition, a left wing young president. His government are attempting to revise the 1980 constitution (written under Pinochet) but the first attempt was resoundingly rejected in a referendum and the second attempt is being led by the right-wing, which is a concern to many more liberal people. My street art tour guide was concerned that what the majority want is something more in the middle, but that’s not what they’re getting. Concerns over the constitution are also leading to protests, which are being strongly policed.

So this visit to Santiago showed me a city on edge, not really at peace with itself. I did some touristy lovely things such as going up San Cerro Cristobal, visiting the excellent museums and eating in nice restaurants but it’s currently a city where one needs to think carefully about where you are, in a way that I hadn’t expected.