Living the Good Life: Santiago

Hey Guys!
Sorry for the major blogging hiatus, we have just been crazy little travelers, heading south of Santiago and seeing so many amazing things. We will try to get some blogs up so you can see what we mean.
So after Rio (my happy place), we flew to Santiago, and aside from checking out this cool city, we were on a vehicle hunt. Jared said it would be a waaaaayy better way to see Patagonia and I just kind of went with it. The amount of freedom you get after being at the mercy of buses and such has been super nice, though.
However, nothing happens quickly in Chilé (or South America for that matter), so we had lots of time to explore Santiago while we looked for a vehicle. Here's some of the cool things we did.
On our first full day there we visited 'Museo de la Memoria y Los Derechos Humanos,' (the Museum of Memory and Human Rights). We learned about the military coup in 1973 carried out by Pinochet (and the CIA.....) where they overthrew the current Socialist government ran by Salvador Allende- which happened to be the first democratically elected Socialist party to take power in South America. The rich and elite (and the Americans) didn't like that too much, so they used military force to take power, and the country was run by this dictatorship until 1990. During the years of the dictatorship, 35,000 people were persecuted for policitial reasons, 28,000 of which were tortured, 2,279 were executed and 1,248 are still unaccounted for to this day. Over 200,000 were exiled from the country, but some estimate over a million people chose to flee, either temporarily or more often permanently as a result of the junta. What's even crazier is the way the dictatorship ended. In 1990 Pinochet held a referendum asking the Chilean people if they wanted 8 more years of a dictatorship- Yes or No, and they voted No. Just like that, no violence, just a vote. We couldn't take any pictures here, so I apologize for all the text but I think it's a super important part of recent Chilean history that was worth talking about.
After that sombre museum we headed across a park to the Natural History Museum. We learned about Chilé's cool wildlife, climate zones, volcanoes, and such.

Here we are outside the museum

Nmoranges, in their natural habitat

The Huemul, or Andean deer, is unique to Patagonia and I want to see one soooo bad!!

Whale skeleton

Gotta keep your Llamas, Alpacas, Guanacos and Vicuñas straight!

The next day Jared wanted to have a chill day and I can't sit still, so I went on a free walking tour around Santiago. It was a great introduction to a lot of things, and since we knew we would be here for a while, it gave me a lot of fun ideas. Santiago is a city of over 6 million people, so there are lots of nice museums, public spaces, etc. It's not chaotic though, which was lovely.
After the walking tour I toured "La Chascona" with a Norwegian girl I had met. This was one of the houses of Pablo Neruda, a famous Chilean poet. We couldn't take pictures in the house, sorry, I just have this one from the outside

However, it was one of the coolest things I did in Santiago. The house was so eccentric, it was built on 4 levels, and you walked through little gardens to get from one place to the other. You could tell a very creative person was involved in the design and construction of this house. It was full of little knick knacks from around the world, and the rooms were not actually that big and grandiose, it just felt really, really cozy and inviting. I know it's a bit weird to go on about a house of a dead poet, but it just had so much style.
The next day Jared and I went out for some sight-seeing together. We started at the Plaza de Armas and the Metropolitan Cathedral of Santiago, which was really beautiful and open inside.

Next we walked to La Moneda, the presidential palace that was also bombed on September 11th, 1973 by Pinochet when they took the government by force.

This is a statue of Salvador Allende, who was in power before Pinochet took it.

They called this 'New York St' because it looks like you're in NYC.

And this is in the Paris-Londres area, also named because they are two intersecting streets that look like Paris and London.
Next we visited the Pre-Colombian art museum, which was totally overwhelming and so amazing. It covered millennia of indigenous peoples arts and customs before colonial times. We learned about so many different groups of indigenous peoples- how they lived, and looked at their artifacts that had survived to today. South and Central America is so much more than just Incans, Aztecs and Mayans!!

Jared taking a quick selfie with the Chemamülles, wooden statues that were placed on top of Mapuche tombs. They were erected to assist the deceased's transition to the afterlife.

These are called stirrup-handle jugs, and are common throughout the history of many indigenous people's pottery.

Gold carved trinkets. Unfortunately, many beautifully crafted items were melted down by the Spaniards when they came as they were more interested in making gold bricks.

Yup, that's a cat-god, depicted with kittens drinking from her mammary glands!

A huge map showing the flow of indigenous people all through South and Central America.

Here we are hiking up the Santa Lucia hill to get a little view over the city.
The next day we climbed the Cerro San Cristobal, and got better views yet. The only shame was how much smog there was!