Your complete itinerary: 36 hours in Santiago, Chile
Santiago, Chile's sprawling capital, is the gateway to some of the world's greatest natural wonders — Patagonia, the Atacama Desert, Easter Island — many travelers understandably breeze through. It might not wow like Rio de Janeiro or Buenos Aires, but scratch the surface and the city is alive with music, art and nightlife, against the arresting backdrop of the Andes.
Divisions still run deep, 50 years after Gen. Augusto Pinochet's U.S.-backed coup d'etat ushered in a 17-year dictatorship. Just four years ago, Chile exploded into cathartic and, at times, violent unrest, as hundreds of thousands of Santiaguinos protested social inequalities. The scars are there for all to see. But if you've made it all this way, you should give Santiago a chance to impress.
ITINERARY
Friday
7:30 p.m. | Step to the rhythm
Need a visa to go to Europe? Get in (a very long) line.
To the uninitiated, la cueca, which was declared Chile's national dance by the Pinochet regime in 1979, can appear a bewildering whirl of handkerchiefs and heels. Get the basics at la Casa de la Cueca, a cheerful dance hall at the top of a narrow staircase in the up-and-coming neighborhood Matta Sur. On Fridays, the establishment hosts dance classes (3,000 Chilean pesos, or about $3.40) to a live soundtrack of local musicians. Maria Esther Zamora and her husband, Pepe Fuentes, opened the space in 1996, bedecking it with flags and photographs of the city. Sadly, Fuentes died in 2020 and the pandemic nearly forced the place's closure, but the dance classes — and raucous three-course lunches on the first Sunday of each month (22,000 pesos, book in advance) — show that la Casa de la Cueca is back stronger than ever.
9 p.m. | Try re-imagined
