I went out onto Avenida Libertador Bernardo O’Higgins, the main street of Santiago, about 11, and I found it full of people, thronging around the two huge bus stations, side by side, a block from my hotel.  They were teeming also at the train station, half a mile east,  and the mall that flanks the train station, as well as at the huge covered marketplace between and at the department stores all around.  Everything was wide open.  You would hardly guess that it is Easter Sunday.

The temperature is 77º F (25ªC) and the sun was glancing off the streets and sidewalks like radiant gold.  I marveled at how good I felt.  I felt absolutely wonderful, and I can’t figure out why, but I won’t argue with it.  I have been exercising for almost two years, and I could feel a very pleasant tension in my muscles.  I am simply delighted to be alive.  I don’t know how long this euphoria will last, but let me revel and bask in it while it does.

One sour note was that I weighed myself the day before yesterday for the first time in over 2 years, and I was disappointed that I had gained ten pounds, so I’m on a fast right now, but nothing religious mind you.  No Easter Sunday dinner for me today!

Unlike Buenos Aires, which has relatively few American restaurants and stores, Santiago abounds in them.  So far I’ve seen Taco Bell, McDonald’s, KFC, Burger King and Wendy’s.  The sad part is that they feature American-style prices too.  Whereas I could eat for a $1 or less in Buenos Aires, I can’t get by with less than about $3 here, and the good stuff, like Chilean home cooking, tends to cost $6, $8 or $10, even at down-home type restaurants.  But I’m on a fast at any rate.

People in these parts don’t seem to eat any kind of breakfast resembling the typical American one.  I’ve never seen any restaurants in South America featuring bacon and eggs, with toast and potatoes.  Even McDonald’s has no breakfast menu.  The preferred breakfast seems to be three crescents with coffee.

Surrounding the whole complex of bus and train stations, malls and marketplaces, there is a garment district with hundreds of stores specializing in clothes, textiles and sewing notions, wholesale and retail, interspersed with stores selling radios, cameras, watches, toys and other common wares.  So far, I haven’t seen any book stores or antique shops, and no shops for coins and stamps.  Downtown Santiago, a mile or two away, has an 11-story department store called Paris, but, of course, I know what’s inside without even looking.  Aren’t they all the same?  Cosmetics on 1, ladies’ apparel on 2 and 3, men’s on 4 and 5, sporting goods on 6, furniture on 7, appliances on 8, food court and cinema on 9, gym and video games on 10, computers in the basement.

There’s another area, called Baquedano, another mile or two east, where financial establishments dominate the landscape.  There, there are banks, insurance companies, brokerages, attorneys’ offices and who-knows-what kind of office buildings.  Baquedano is stately, grand and intimidating, unfriendly to retail consumers.

But I’ve  explored only few of Santiago’s neighborhoods.  Maybe I’ll learn more later.  The Santiago Metro is actually the largest Metro in South America, surprisingly enough, and it is modern and spiffy, on a par with LA’s Gold, Purple, Red, Blue and Green lines.  The Metro also has “clones”, buses that go the exact same routes that the Metro lines follow, amd there are other buses too.

Anyway, I feel just splendid, and wish everyone a great day!

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