We attempted to do the cultural things in Santiago and only got to see a fraction of what we wanted to. It seemed like everything was closed for renovation and was meant to re open 6 months ago – Pre Colombian art, Santiago Museum etc.

We got to the Museum of Fine Arts finally after going on a wild goose chase as google maps had it about 5km away from its actual location. The exhibits were a bit odd in that there was a Hungarian photographer who had taken photos of New York, Paris and Hungary between 1914 and 1965ish I am not quite sure what his connection was with Chile. There was also a lot of artwork by Matta who is Chilean but his stuff is surrealist style which seemed like he had been at the BAS base of Halley for the past two years. Not quite all there! There was one piece of art by a Chilean whose last name was Scottish made of about 40 old record players which were spinning. On each spinning record player was a globe – all different constructions and sizes (one was a hacky sack). I was pretty certain Tommy would have had a fit if he had seen how overloaded the electrical strips were.

Lunch in a grassy park in the shade of the trees as you can see from the photo my skin is so white you almost need sunglasses to look at me with the reflection.

Next stop was the Cathedral at Plaza De Armas which had its midnight mass at 10:30pm which is why it was closed up when we got there at 11:30 for 12 on Christmas Eve. There was a nativity scene set up and some very beautiful flowers decorating the dais. The Natural History Museum was not in the google maps location so we headed back to the hostel for some refreshments and to re group and get a better map of where we were headed.

Off again in the right direction we past the train museum so I got a few pictures for my nephew Henry of Thomas, Annie and Clarabelle (I think those are the right names!).

The Natural History museum was in a beautiful building with some nice flowers in front of it but it was closed!

Santiago is full of these outdoor gyms they are great. I would jump on if it wasn’t 30 degrees!