Santiago by Metro, Bike, and a Change of Plans
I wanted to escape the summer heat. Maine was too expensive, so I started looking farther south. Much farther south. Chile was having winter, we could ski in August, and I already knew the country had a fascinating history. So, Santiago it was.
One morning, we decided to go to Persa Biobío, a huge flea market in Santiago. We took the Metro, and somewhere along the way everyone suddenly started getting off the train. We stayed where we were, looking around and trying to figure out what everyone else apparently knew.
A nice woman started explaining something to us in Spanish, and somewhere in the middle of it I heard the one word I understood: “todos.”
“OH! Todos!” I said, and headed for the door.
Chris hadn't experienced the same linguistic breakthrough, but he came with me anyway.
We all walked out of the station together, with the nice woman still talking to us and trying to help. Eventually she led us over to a Metro employee, who gave us what I'm sure were very helpful instructions in rapid-fire Spanish. We nodded. “Oh, okay. Thanks!”
Then we went off to figure it out for ourselves.
Chris said, “Let's bike to it.”
“Okay.”
Santiago has a public bike-share system, Itaú Bikes. We'd never used it before, but we downloaded the app, got ourselves two bikes and headed south toward Biobío.
It wasn't until we were almost there that it occurred to us to check the map for somewhere to return them.
There weren't any bike ports.
This is how we learned something fairly important about Santiago's bike-share system: the ports are concentrated in the northeastern, wealthier part of the city. We had happily ridden south without considering that eventually the bikes would have to go somewhere.
So we turned around and rode all the way back to where we'd started.
This is also how we learned another useful thing about Itaú Bikes: there's a 60-minute limit.
We were about an hour late.
By then Itaú was messaging both of us.
Lo siento.
We returned the bikes and got coffee at a very nice sidewalk café. Then, apparently undeterred by our first experience, we got two more bikes and headed northeast into Barrio Italia.
As we were putting the bikes away, I noticed a man on a motorcycle watching us. Since arriving in Santiago, EVERYONE has warned us about phone theft. Keep your phone close. Be careful when you have it out. And one very efficient way to take a phone is to grab it while passing on a bike or motorcycle.
I told Chris the guy was watching us. Chris put his bike away, put his phone in his pocket, and we started walking away like normal.
As we walked by the guy, Chris waved.
The we see you kind of wave.
That's when I noticed a security guard nearby who had apparently been watching the whole thing too. Once he saw that we were aware, he turned around and went back to his post.
We kept walking. The guy on the motorcycle started going in the same direction. We turned down a side street, and he continued on.
And down that side street, we found an excellent Chilean burger.
We had not, however, made it to Persa Biobío.
So we tried again the next day.
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