Days 1-2: Santiago and Getting to Punta Arenas
2026-02-26 - Reading time: 6 minutes
Where to start? I assume it's the same with many adventures: logistics and waiting.
Flights to Houston and then Santiago:
- Sadness finally hit hard at leaving my family behind: "What am I doing?" kind of thing. But Emily made me feel better talking to her during some of the airport interludes, encouraging me that I was doing the right thing and this was the worst part of the entire trip.
- Stopping for a long layover in Houston, I was excited to be in Texas for the first time in a while, so I splurged for some $40 fajitas... they were okay. But then for dinner I got barbecue, which was much better.
- I managed to sleep okay on the red-eye to Santiago. Thanks to an Anthropic engineer's blog I read many moons ago for the cervical pillow suggestion. Makes sleeping as a tall person with a long neck (recently learned from starting PT) more bearable. And melatonin, the red-eye elixir of life.
Santiago:
- Two fascinating/new things at the same time: meeting Mike who landed at a similar time to me and offered to setup a guided tour for the both of us, and seeing this new country/culture/city. I'll introduce Mike and the rest of the crew in a later post.
- Our tourguide Julio
- Really friendly, laid-back, and knowledgeable guy.
- Has a day job for a company helping tourists find golfing destinations... in other countries?
- "What do you want your kids to grow up to be?" (for his 6 and 8 year old): "not engineers". Since engineering is so prestigious in Chile, it has become diluted by people who "pay" for a degree more or less. And aren't truly engineers.
- Believes that his kids learning journey is the most important thing for their well being
- Impressions on Santiago:
- So much like Portugal in climate, people, architecture, culture.
- Was really impressed by their sculpture garden (which I neglected to take a picture of as we drove by). Looked more impressive than the Seattle scpulture garden at first glance. Surprisingly.
- A surprising amount of activity on a random Tuesday (traditional dancers in the street, drum bands performing, lots of people on the streets)
- Low amounts of traffic surprisingly, though apparently it's been bad historically.
- Sad stories of the history and the plight the native people. Incredibly oppressed by the Spanish, then meddled with by Nixon who backed the tyrant president who took power through a coup (against the socialist president who committed suicide because of the fear of coup... which doesn't make too much sense)
- Male/Female roles were pretty strong in the society, though not in your face.
Mike and I on top of one of the hills in Santiago. This hill had a placard "signed" by Darwin since he spent a good bit of time here on his way to the Galapagos (I want to say a year maybe?):
Art in the town square. Represents the Spanish conquerors (the body) being separated from the native Mupocho (?) people's who they eventually integrated with (the head). This artwork has been heavily criticized by the natives because the nose is very European apparently, even though it's supposed to represent the native people.
I snapped this because we were in a catholic church, while they were having mass, and I like how they are cool with someone parking their bike in the church, right next to the pews:
Santiago's main courtrooms:
A view of Santiago from the Immaculate conception statue (like the one at the top of the hill in Rio de Janiero). The haziness is from the city being in a valley and it being relatively hot today for the area (a nice mid 80's Fahrenheit):
- Then met up with Niki, Jason, Cath, Steve, and Toughy in the airport. Pretty surreal to hear Youtube audio coming out of people's faces. :D
Observations on the people I've met so far:
- Everyone is so chill, I think it comes from a life of sailing, waiting for weather windows etc.
- But more than that, it's a sense of nuance and balance: very few strong polarized viewpoints, even those I expected from the little I knew about them going in.
- Generosity and giving back is a big theme. Peace Corps, USAID, US Navy, teaching others.
An incomplete list of things we've talked about so far (and just a small glimmer into the diversity of conversation on the horizon):
- For youtube production: What was more surprising? The lifestyle that you've been able to build or the community (and what that's meant to you) that you've built along the way?
- How to balance telling the truth vs protecting privacy/dignity
- Why choose lives of service? How did you choose your career path?
- Why is nuance so lacking in modern media and discourse?
- Culture, history, travel
- Lots of life/intro stories
And finally, landing in Punta Arenas at night, a bit freaky since the airport was on the coast, so you're doing your landing approach over the water with very few lights on around you, no visibility of the water or of ground until you touch down.