Chile. Part I. SantiagoMapDecember 30, 2006 January 10, 2007 Smoking is prohibited in Chilean hotels. At least in the ones where I stayed you had to step outside to light up. The porter is throwing newspapers onto the pavement, covering the butts he’s amassed this morning in front of the hotel entrance in an attempt not to be caught in the unseemly act of smoking. ![]() SantiagoMap
Almost all of the streets in Santiago are one-way. There are no street name signs on buildings, but there is a pole at every intersection indicating the street name, house numbers, and the direction of the flow of traffic. ![]() The names of the architect and the engineer are written on almost every building. ![]() Having said that, the city’s architecture is fairly listless. On the bright side, they’ve stuck in monuments all over the place (mainly busts in city squares). Some places are reminiscent of pleasant corners of Europe. ![]() The phone boxes are like the ones you might see in a European resort town. ![]() From time to time you can spot French traffic lights. The last time I came across these was in Rennes. ![]() The main issue in Santiago is the buses. The late Pinochet bet big on buses. To make way for the buses he went so far as to dismantle all of the railways, including the tramway tracks, dashed line sections of which can still be seen in some parts of Santiago. Buses have proliferated to the point that they’ve been allocated exactly half of the road on all of the main streets. Two lanes for cars; two lanes for buses. Traffic lane separator the height of a kerbstone. ![]() Taxis also use the marked bus lanes. Be that as it may, the number of buses is truly staggering. What’s more is, the bus drivers are just as arrogant and reckless as “Volga” drivers are in Russia. Never before have I seen a bus run a red light at full speed. Here it’s nothing out of the ordinary. When you’re waiting at the bus stop you have to flag down the bus number you’re after to get it to come to a halt, otherwise it’ll drive right past. The bus stops look like an ECG. ![]() The metro (somehow, it makes you think of the one in Cairo) is clean, fast, and convenient, yet out of habit people ride it less than they do the buses. ![]() It’s interesting how this exit works: you have to go through two paddle gates, which only open outwards. I didn’t actually test whether it’s difficult to enter through these same games, but it certainly doesn’t look very hard. ![]() Santiago is encircled by hills and mountains, which prevent the airing out of the carbon monoxide fumes emitted by the buses. That’s why the city centre is populated by people who can’t afford to move to the rich neighbourhoods, where the air circulates. ![]() The virgin Mary, a ladder on her back, rises up above the city. ![]() I thought that Chile was a typical third world country, but it turns out that it’s actually doing pretty well for itself, on par with the likes of South Africa. ![]() At the very least you can say that they also have their own no parking sign. ![]() |
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Chile. I. Santiago
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