Adventures in Santiago de Chile

We arrived in Santiago sometime in the morning after a long night bus from Puerto Montt. We were all quite excited to arrive in Santiago. For Patrick, he was looking forward to sunshine, as he was quite tired of the rain we’d experienced in Patagonia. Jo was also looking forward to this, and to get to know better the city and my friends there. For me, I was looking forward to spending more time with my friends in Santiago and re-visiting the places I used to frequent when I lived there.

Other than the quick stop a few weeks prior, it had been almost four years since I had moved to the city for the first time and almost three years since I’d last visited. I absolutely loved my time in Santiago. I lived there during their summer, so it was beautifully sunny basically all the time. Santiago de Chile is a underrated city, in my opinion. It is more modern, but still has many old colonial-style buildings in certain neighborhoods. It has wide side walks, plenty of bike lanes, and many different parks and greenspaces for all to enjoy. Every Sunday is their ciclovia, where the major road through the city is closed to cars, they also often have free fitness classes and opportunities for movement in many of the different parks around the city. Santiago is the city of cerritos, meaning small mountains. Located in the foothills of the Andies mountains, you can see the mountains from basically anywhere in the city. Right inside and within quick access to the city are the small mountains, so a common past-time is to go and hike them. Every evening and on weekends you will see individuals, groups of friends, and families walking, running, and biking up the San Cristobal Hill which is right in the city. You will also see people taking to the trails in the small mountains around the city. Most of these are easily accessible by public transport. Depending on where you live, they can be anywhere from 1 hour on public transport to a five minute walk to arrive at the trail head. I was quite excited to share these with Jo and Patrick.

We were staying at my friend Jesus’s appartment in a zone called San Isidro. This zone is more in the center of the city, in one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods. It is fairly safe, though less-so than the areas where I used to live which were Provedencia and Las Condes. Though not my preferred neighborhood to be in, Jesus offered his apartment to us because he was out of the country visiting his family in Venezuela. Not exactly in the position to turn down free lodging, we accepted. It was nice, actually, to explore a different neighborhood. Also, our apartment came with an unexpected roommate: Jesus’s little bird, Felipe. He was skeptical of us, however, he enjoyed chatting away with his own reflection wherever he could see it (mirrors and other reflective surfaces), which provided us with plenty of entertainment.

One of the first things that we did was go for a run up San Cristobal hill (a Santiagio staple), and then out to a couple of the viewpoints where I used to run several times a week when I lived here. It was fun to follow in my own footsteps, so to speak. It was also gorgeously sunny, and being spring, there were thousands of these small orange and yellow flowers everywhere. I’d never been in Santiago in October before, so discovering it with its early spring flowers was a treat. Later that evening, we went over to an old friend of mine’s apartment, where we had arepas and got caught up. My friend, who’s name is also Jesus, and who is also from Venezuela, is a big baseball fan. The Toronto Blue Jays had just beat the New York Yankees to go on to the World Series, and Jesus was quite a Yankees fan, so we had fun talking a bit of baseball.

Of course, travelling with our friend Patrick meant not much rest for the legs. Surrounding the city of Santiago there are many different small mountains, being in the foothills of the Andes. This means practically endless opportunities for hiking and trail running, with most of them being easily accessible via public transport. Patrick only had a few days in the city, so I knew I had to choose wisely. It was an easy decision, as there are three cerros, as they say in spanish, that are the most emblematic of Santiago, second only to San Cristobal: El Carbon, Manquehue, and Manquehuito. If you do them all in one go, it’s called La Triple Corona, or the triple crown. Accessing the trail head was as easy as taking the subway, followed by a bus. We headed out, lathered in sunscreen, expecting a typical, sunny Santiago day. To our surprise, we got outside and it was cloudy - quite heavily, in fact. We almost decided to change our plans and choose a different day, but this day was the most convenient for us to do it, so we forged ahead. Our original plan was to do them in the order previously mentioned, however, we missed the stop where we should have gotten off for the trail head of El Carbon. Instead, we stayed on the bus until the last stop, which was the access point for Manquehuito, and did the crown in reverse order.

Climbing up to Manquehuito (called that because it is the smaller sister to Manquehue - when you add -ito or -ita in Spanish it makes it mean smaller or cute) was no joke. It was climbing straight away, no easy spots. At first, you start going through an extremely wealthy neighborhood of the city, past multi-million dollar mansions with a variety of luxury cars behind their tall gates. One of the houses had a pack of at least five german shepherds patrolling the front gate. From there, you finally reach the trail head, which climbs up until the split-off point with one direction being towards Manquehue and the other to the summit of Manquehuito. As we were climbing, we couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed, as it was grey and cloudy, meaning that the views from the top probably wouldn’t be all that impressive. Boy, were we wrong. As we arrived to the top of the first summit, we could hardly believe our eyes. We had climbed up above the clouds, so all the mountain tops around us were bathed in sunshine, meanwhile instead of looking down at the city, it was a sea of clouds. It was breathtaking. We ran down and then back up to the top of Manquehue, which was equally as impressive, if not moreso, being that it is quite a lot higher. Of the three summits, Manquehue is the highest.

From there, we had to descend the backside of Manquehue to then climb up El Carbon. These trails are certainly beautiful, but they are also tough, and not just the steep climbing. Santiago’s climate in the spring and summer is generally quite arid. This means that there aren’t so many tall trees on these mountains, but rather tall grasses, bushes, and cacti. This also means that the trails are hard, yet covered in a fine layer of dust and teeny-tiny rocks, which can be quite slick. While this is challenging while climbing up, it makes it even more tricky coming down. I don’t know if it was because of where I was at in my hormonal cycle, or if I was just having a difficult day, but I struggled with the downhill even more than normal. As soon as we started going down, I was like a ball of anxiety. Coming down Manquehue was the most difficult descent, and I just couldn’t find rhythm and was having these moments of panic. Finally, when Patrick had gone ahead and Jo had stayed back to wait for me, I broke down in tears. Yes, I was feeling anxious about falling on the slippery downhill sections, but more than that I was frustrated. I was tired of feeling afraid, and of that fear preventing me from being able to enjoy the downhill and the trail the way that Jo and Patrick could. I am somewhat of a perfectionist in this setting, as well, so I was frustrated that, after more than a year of working on it, I wasn’t further along with my fear and downhill capabilities than where I was. “Getting over my fear’ and improving my downhill was taking much longer than I thought it would, and I was feeling quite tired of even trying. Jo hugged me and did his best to help me calm down, and then we continued along the trail together. Again, the yellow and orange flowers were everywhere, which helped lighten my mood a little bit.

We reached the top of El Carbon and were yet again rewarded with the sea of clouds, though certain sections the city skyscrapers were starting to poke through. We enjoyed the view before heading down El Carbon, which was still slick but less scary than the steep descent from Manquehue. We reached the bottom with tired legs but feeling grateful for what turned out to be perfect weather and a (mostly) good time in the trails.

That night, we walked over to a nearby neighborhood called Barrio Italia, which is kind of a boho-vibes neighborhood with plenty of great bars, cafe, and restaurants to celebrate our Triple Crown accomplishment. We enjoyed a tasty craft beer each while watching the sunset. Santiago has some really gorgeous sunsets, as the sky always turns pink and orange in a way I haven’t really seen anywhere else.

The next day was a work day until the evening, when we went to go run with Midnight Runners Santiago. This would be Patrick’s first time running a regular weeknight run with a city other than Paris, and of course his first experience with Midnight Runners Latam. The captains had Jo and I do a mini-takeover of the event, meaning that we did all three of the exercise stops throughout the run. We introduced to them the squat exercise to the song Cha Cha Slide from MR San Francisco, as well as the now-famous arms tabata from Paris. At the final stop, we taught the crew the Pena Baiona, which we had taught previously to the crews in Mexico. It is essentially crowd surfing down a line of people who are sitting on the ground. It comes from French rugby culture and is a lot of fun. Teaching it to an entire group of people who have no clue what it is, however, is always interesting. Overall, they did really well and people really loved it. They are often a bit nervous to try it at first, but then they always end up loving it. The run was amazing - the Santiago crew have so much energy and I just love running with them. Patrick loved it, too, he only wished it was longer. In Paris, they run nearly twice as far with 5 exercise stops along the way. It is always a pleasure to revisit the Midnight Runners cities that I started and see how they’ve grown and developed. Several of my friends who don’t run as often with the crew showed up to run knowing that I would be there. My friend Nikolas, a rafting guide from the nearby Maipo Canyon and who I met four years ago when I went rafting there, came into the city to run, as well. That was a Thursday night, and we got busy making plans to get a crew out to Maipo Sunday morning to do some rafting.

Friday we spent doing a mix of working and doing some touristy stuff around the city. Saturday, I finally got to reunite with one of my closest friends, Viviana. Originally from Medellin, Colombia, Viviana had only been living in Santiago for a few months when we first met. Now, she has completed her master’s thesis and is working as an engineer in the mining industry in Chile. Most of the mines are located in the north of the country, so she spends Monday through Thursday near Calama, and then Friday through Sunday in Santiago, which is why I hadn’t seen her until now. She and I met up for brunch and just chatted and chatted, catching each other up on everything. While we chat and text regularly, it’s not the same as being face-to-face. Later that afternoon, we met up with Jo and Patrick and some of the Santiago crew. Patrick headed off to the airport in the early evening and Jo and I went out for drinks with our friends. Nothing too crazy, however, because the next day we were going rafting.

Sunday morning was tough, having to get up at 6am in order to be at our meeting point for 7am to head to the canyon. We met with my friend Wilmer and a group of other people from Midnight Runners Santiago, split between the two cars, and headed off to the canyon. There was a small miscommunication with Niko which resulted in us over-shooting where we were supposed to go by about half an hour, but other than that everything went smoothly. We met up with Niko in the town of Maipo where he led us to the launch point.

Jo and I were the only two people in the group who had previous rafting experience, so our guide, a man from Peru, put us in the front of the boat at the beginning. Niko was our safety kayak, meaning that he would follow us in the kayak, available to help in case anyone fell out of the raft. Everyone else was a bit nervous, in particular one woman who didn’t really know how to swim, but otherwise was really excited. I was a bit surprised when she said she didn’t know how to swim, because I don’t think I would go rafting if I didn’t, but she really wanted to do it. In the least, you are wearing a full wet suit and a life jacket, all which helps you float, and a helmet.

We launched off and, being the very beginning of the rafting season in Chile, the water was freezing. After all, the river is a mixture of rainfall and snow melting down from the mountains as Chile heads into summertime. Being in the front, Jo and I were of course soaked from head to toe almost immediately. After a bit we shuffled around so other people could have a chance to experience the front of the boat. Eventually, we reached a point in the river where there was a high rock that we could jump from. Everyone except the woman who couldn’t swim and her husband were going to jump. I originally didn’t want to, because the water was so cold and I was remembering how cold Jo’s sister was after jumping in Peru. The group, however, was not taking no for an answer, so I went and jumped. It was really fun, as I knew it would be, but the water was so frigid. From that point on, I had to try really hard to calm my nervous system so I wouldn’t be completely trembling and shivering after that. A little ways down the river, our guide told us that he had a surprise for us. When he said go, we had to leave our paddles in the boat and roll off the side of the raft into the water (of course, except for the woman who couldn’t swim). Again, the water was freezing, but it was still quite fun. I quickly found Jo in the water and we clung together, floating through the water. I looked up and saw Niko, who was motioning for us to swim back to the boat. Oh, I thought. I thought this was the end and we would just float to finish it off. Nope. Jo and I both kind of laughed because we thought that maybe, being the only two non-native Spanish speakers, perhaps just didn’t fully understand all the instructions. The boat was actually behind us, so we had to swim against the current a bit before catching it and hanging off the side of it. Turns out, it wasn’t the Spanish that was the problem - no one had quite understood the instructions, and so we were all floating all over the place! It was a pretty funny site, but thankfully everyone made it back to the boat no problems. At this point, I’d been in the water for several minutes and was getting quite cold. The woman who couldn’t swim’s husband had stayed with her in the boat, and he looked at me and said do you want out? To which I quickly said yes, please! I then reached up to pull myself into the boat while he grabbed hold of the shoulders of my life jacket and pulled backward, as per pre-rafting instructions. Just after I had gotten back into the boat, however, our guide said Okay now a photo! I was a bit annoyed because in these photos I wasn’t in the water with everyone else, even though I had gone in. Oh well!

We then finished off the last part of the rafting, at which point we were all super happy but also ready to get out of the boat. For most of us, the water pooling in our wetsuit shoes was making our feet so cold they were starting to hurt. As soon as we got out of the boat, Jo took his shoes off immediately, putting his feet into the sand on the riverbank. Everyone was incredibly excited, as it was really a lot of fun, plus the views from the middle of the canyon are just stunning, with the canyon walls followed by snow-capped mountains is just spectacular. Back at rafting headquarters, went went to go to the bathrooms to get changed. On the way back, I heard some kind of squeaking, yelping sounds. Puppies! And not just any puppies, but 3-week old puppies. The mom was a stray in the area who had shown up at the rafting headquarters and campsite, so the owners helped her give birth and were now taking care of the mama and finding homes for all of the puppies. I didn’t think the day could get much better, and then I found myself snuggling tiny little puppies. It’s a good thing they were all already spoken for, otherwise Jo and I might have ‘accidentally’ kept one. After rafting, we headed back to the city, all of us exhausted.

The morning of rafting, I felt like I had a bit of a scratchy or sore throat, but I thought that was maybe just the fatigue. Well, it wasn’t - the next morning, I woke up feeling not so great. Jo and I went out for a short run, but, of course, that made things worse. By midday, I was feeling pretty crummy. I needed to work, though, and had an important meeting that day, so I took a paracetamol and we made the trek to a cafe for internet (Jesus’s apartment didn’t have internet yet). That evening, we went over to my friends Coti and Sergio’s apartment to have one last dinner with the team. When I arrived, however, I was so cold I needed to borrow a sweater to wear over top of the sweater I was already wearing. Once I was warm, I was okay, though Jo checked my forehead and sure enough I was running a bit of a fever. I did my best to keep distance from everyone else, but I also really wanted to see them all one last time, as I didn’t know when I would see them next. It was lovely to just chat and spend time with friends. They also presented both of us with a gift: t-shirts from one of the past designs that they had sold as a fundraiser for the community. They’re beautiful shirts, and I am always proud to represent one of my MR teams. With that, we said goodbye, as I was unwell and we had to finish packing and to prepare for our bus the next morning to Mendoza, Argentina.