Santiago, Chile, even though it only has about 5 million people, is an impressive cosmopolitan city. It is both the financial and political capital of Chile and was filled with wide boulevards and modern steel-and-glass skyscrapers spread out like a string from the center of town to the east. Best of all, it was a place filled with business people, hurried shopers and travelers, so my presence wasn't the main point of attention on any street.
As far as I know, Santiago is not especially known for any history or cultural outlets, so I decided to stay for just a couple of days before going north to the Atacama desert. Santiago followed through on its reputation as South America's most Americanized city, in fact, sometimes it reminded me of Texas. It is filled with American businesses such as Pizza Hut, KFC, and Blockbuster, to go along with the ubiquitous Burger Kings and McDonald's. Even many of the local bars and restaurants were laid out in a very American, TGIFriday's style, in stand-alone buildings built for that specific purpose. Both nights I visited Santiago's vibrant nightlife, visiting some pretty upscale clubs with music and decor not unlike what you'd see in the trendiest places in LA or San Francisco.
On the second night, my friends and I from the hostel met an interesting Chilean at a very exclusive afterparty in a private home. It seemed as if most of the guests either worked in the entertainment industry or were well-off for some other reason. Raul was no different, he came from the only remaining Chilean family to still produce and market high quality pisco (a white-grape brandy) to international clients. Somehow, the conversation turned to economics and social classes in Chile, and he gave us his view in his perfect English brought on by 8 years of private instruction. He bluntly asserted that, as a general rule, your wealth and social standing corresponds with the lightness of your skin tone in his country. In my estimation, his bluntness is quite correct, but not just in Chile, it is similar throughout countries in South America, having seen it in Argentina and Brazil.
After another welcome baptism in urban life, I am heading north to the sparsely populated Atacama desert, and Chile's frontier with Bolivia. For the next 3 weeks, my experiences are bound to be drastically different, as I'll be staying in not completely modern small cities and towns, most of them high up in the Andes mountain range. It will be a world away culturally as well, as the highlands of South America are a center of its indiginous cultures, and I am likely to run into people with whom I won't be able to speak to in English or Spanish.
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