Walking in Santiago

After my amazing breakfast this morning, I was ready to go out and explore Santiago, the city that I'd just arrived in late last night, and easily the furthest place south that I've been so far, in South America. I was planning to head straight to the downtown area, to start taking care of some housekeeping tasks that needed to be done. But I ended up spending several hours just walking around, staring in awe at this city, that's nothing like anywhere else I've been in South America. This place is really, really... well, really nice! It's so neat, the people are so trendy, the buildings are so grand, the buses and trains are so new — it's like being somewhere in Europe. A whole different world to PEB (Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador). A world called the Western world. The world that people like you and I live in. People from Santiago live in it too.

I walked around Santiago like someone in a dream. Everything I saw, everything I noticed, I could only gape at in disbelief. People were selling stuff on the street — but they weren't shouting at me to buy it, as I walked past. Buses were rolling by, but I saw no jet-black burnt-oil fumes coming out of them, and they looked modern enough to be out of a science-fiction movie. And there were no 15-year-old kids hanging off the front doors, screaming out the destinations: instead, there were electronic signs on the front and sides, clearly displaying the destinations. What's wrong with these people: don't they need all information to be incoherently shouted at them? Can they read, or something?

The buildings are grand, many with stone columns and ornate windows, like something you'd see in Washington D.C. They have no spray-paint on their walls, advertising for you to "vota asi, por el gobierno regional: Pedro Gonzalez". The cars are new, and painted properly, and privately-owned. The boulevards are tree-lined, with rubbish bins, and stormwater drains (what, can't people just wade in the wet season?), and sidewalks that you can walk on without tripping up on.

And the people are trendy. This is not a word you can use to describe the locals in PEB. But it's the perfect description for the residents of Santiago. They have nice clothes, and they buy glamour magazines on the corner, and they pull out their MasterCard after they've had lunch. Although I don't know about the hairstyles: the people of Santiago seem to be about 20 years behind in that regard — mullets, 5 o'clock shadows, and semi-afros seem to be all the rage around here. There seem to be a huge amount of hippies in this city, especially amongst the students, the people my age. Ah well, I guess that when you've got money, and a nice shiny city, and your dad's on floor 53 in the bank further downtown, you can afford to spray your hair pink, and to protest about whatever the hell you want.

Basically, it's taken me completely by surprise, just how much Santiago has taken me by surprise. If you know what I mean. I never expected it to give me this much "culture shock". But after PEB, it really is utterly different to what I've grown used to in my surroundings. It's going to take me a while to acclimatise back to a place that's much, much closer to the Western life that I was once used to. And that I guess I'll get used to again.