There's a moment, maybe forty-eight hours into a new city, when the airport adrenaline finally wears off, and you realize you're not visiting anymore. You're just... here. That happened to me this morning, standing at the window of my flat in Providencia, watching the drizzle turn the street below into a mirror of grey asphalt and red traffic lights. The cordillera, which yesterday felt like a postcard backdrop, today looked like a wall of slate closing the city in. And I thought, good. Now we can start.
I had a plan for the day, a loose one, the kind you make when you're still learning how far your legs will carry you. First, a walk down to the Mapocho River, then up onto Cerro San Cristóbal, and finally, a slow, damp afternoon in the old centre, ending somewhere warm with something hot to eat. The kind of day that doesn't need a map so much as a direction.
The walk to the river from my place is about twenty minutes, down through the quiet, leafy streets of Providencia. It's a strange thing, this city. One block you're in a neighbourhood that feels like a Mediterranean suburb, all plane trees and low fences, and the next you're standing on a bridge over a river that looks like it's been drawn through the city with a pencil, all grey stones and patient, unhurried water. The Mapocho in winter isn't dramatic. It's just there, a constant, low presence running under the city's shoulders.
I stopped on the bridge for a while, watching the water. There's a particular quality to winter light in Santiago, even under cloud. It's flat, but it's not dull. It picks out the details, the textures, the way the old iron of the bridge holds the damp. I saw a man with a fishing rod down on the bank, which seemed optimistic, given the colour of the water. But he was there, patient as the river itself. I thought about Pablo Neruda, who loved this city, and wrote about its river and its rain as if they were old friends. I can see why. There's a companionship in grey weather, if you let it in.
From the river, the path leads south, up toward the hill. Cerro San Cristóbal, the city's green lung, rises out of the flat grid of streets like a sleeping animal. I decided not to take the funicular. I had a feeling I'd be using it later in the week to get to the top with lighter legs, so today I thought I'd walk up through the Parque Metropolitano, just to feel the city shift under my feet as I gained height.
The climb is steady, not steep. The path winds up through eucalyptus and pine, and the air, which was cold and damp at the bottom, gets cooler and cleaner as you go. And then, about halfway up, the city opens out below you. It's not a panorama you see on postcards, not with the cloud sitting low over the towers of Las Condes in the distance. But it's more honest, I think. A city in its winter coat, buttoned up against the cold, going about its business under a sky that looks like it's deciding whether or not to rain again.
At the top, there's the sanctuary, the big white statue of the Virgin Mary looking out over the valley. I'm not a religious man, but you don't have to be to feel the weight of that gaze. Behind it, the cordillera should have been a wall of granite and snow, but today it was mostly cloud. Only once, for maybe thirty seconds, the wind shifted, and there it was, a shoulder of the mountains, pale blue and streaked with white. It was enough. I tucked that image away, like a coin in a pocket, for later.
By the time I made it back down to the base of the hill, the drizzle had turned into proper rain, the kind that soaks through a jacket if you linger too long. I was on the edge of Bellavista, the old bohemian quarter, all painted murals and narrow streets. But I didn't linger. I crossed the river again and headed for the centre, past the glass dome of the fine arts museum, through the bare trees of Parque Forestal, which looked like an etching in the grey light.
I had one destination in mind: the Mercado Central. I'd read about it, of course, the old iron and glass building from the 1870s, built by the Scottish, a cathedral to seafood. And I'd read that you should order the caldillo de congrio, the conger eel stew that Neruda wrote a whole ode to. It felt like the right thing to do on a cold, wet afternoon. To sit somewhere steaming and old, and eat the city's own poetry.
The noise hits you first, and the smell. Not the smell of fish, not exactly, but the smell of a market hall: wet stone, brine, a hint of something frying. The glass roof lets in a weak, milky light, and the whole place hums with the business of lunch. I walked past the stalls piled with sea urchins and mussels, past the long counters where men in white aprons were shucking oysters with quick, practised hands, until I found a seat at one of the central bars. I didn't catch the name of the place. But I'll describe it to you anyway, because it was perfect. A high counter, stools with worn leather seats, a view of the kitchen's open flame.
I ordered the caldillo de congrio and a piece of bread. It arrived in a deep bowl, the broth a pale, rich gold, with the fish falling apart in soft white flakes, and chunks of potato and carrot and onion swimming in it. It was the kind of meal that restores you, not just to the bones, but to the spirit. It cost about eight thousand pesos, which is a little over eight dollars, and it was worth every one of them. I sat there for almost an hour, letting the steam warm my face, listening to the clatter of plates and the low, comfortable roar of a room full of people eating well.
Fortified, I braved the rain again, heading just a few blocks west and south, toward the Plaza de Armas. The square was quieter than I expected, the usual crowds thinned by the weather. The pigeons were huddled under the eaves of the cathedral. I bought a coffee from a cart, about two thousand six hundred pesos, the price of a decent cup anywhere in the world, and I sat on a bench under a sheltering tree, just watching. There's a rhythm to a city square, a tide of people, and if you sit still enough, you start to move with it.
From the plaza, it's a short walk to the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino. I'd been told it was the best museum in the city, and the building itself, a beautiful old customs house, was worth the visit. The entry is about three thousand pesos. Inside, I spent a long time with the Andean textiles, the patterns so sharp and strange after a thousand years. There's a particular piece, a featherwork tunic from the far north, from the desert coast we'll be heading toward in a few weeks, and I stood in front of it for a while, feeling the pull of that journey already. The Atacama is calling, even from here, through a glass case in a quiet room in the middle of winter.
The afternoon was wearing on, and I was bone-tired in that good way you get from walking a city all day. I caught the metro back, tapping my Bip! card on the turnstile, remembering the peak-hour fare is about eight hundred and seventy pesos, and the monthly cap, if I'm here long enough to use it properly, is somewhere around forty-one thousand. Small numbers, but they add up, and they make you feel less like a tourist. It's the small currencies of a place that make you a resident: the card in your pocket, the route you know by heart, the corner where you always get a good coffee.
Back in Providencia, the rain had stopped, and the streets were washed clean. The air had that sharp, clear edge you get after a winter shower, and the lights of the shops were starting to come on, warm and yellow against the blue dusk. I stopped at a small corner store and bought a bag of plums, still cold from the chill of the day, and a packet of something sweet I didn't recognize, just because it was there. The total was about three thousand pesos. I walked the last block to my building, the concierge, the eternally vigilant doorman, gave me a nod as I came in, and I took the lift up, the old cage rattling a little.
And now, here I am. Not at the window anymore, but at a small table, the plums in a bowl in front of me, a glass of pisco warming in my hand. The apartment is quiet, the city is a low hum beyond the glass. I think about what I did today. I didn't see a single famous sight. I didn't check anything off a list. I just... walked. And ate a bowl of soup. And watched the rain. Which is, I think, the very beginning of knowing a place. Not its highlights, but its weather. Not its monuments, but its rivers. Tomorrow, I'll start to think about buses, and the road north. But tonight, the map of this city is a little more my own, drawn in the damp footprints I left along its streets.
The plums are good. Sweet, with a little bite to them. Almost like the city itself. Almost like winter. Hasta mañana.
Oh, and one more thing. The ice cream festival is happening this weekend in Las Condes. In the middle of winter. I love this country.