Ease into South America in Santiago

SANTIAGO is overcoming its troubled past and evolving into a cosmopolitan, prosperous city writes Anthony Dennis.

Escape Santiago

IF SINGAPORE is Asia for beginners, Santiago is surely South America for starters. But therein end the similarities.

By Latin American standards Santiago, the capital of Chile, is perhaps the continent's most civilised, conservative and relatively crime-free capital, with none of the brashness of Buenos Aires or the raffishness of Rio.

Yet Santiago is no urban wimp either and, unlike Singapore, it's not squeaky clean.

It's a winding, jolting drive up Santiago's Cerro San Cristobal, the nearly 900m-high mountain that doubles as Parque Metropolitano, the city's vertical public playground above the city.

The view at the top (which can also be reached by a funicular from the Bellavista neighbourhood) is worth it, even though to experience it is to be simultaneously awed and appalled.

A heavy soiled scarf of brown smog, after all, hangs above the densely packed skyline below, the likes of which would make even other polluted cities around the world gasp.

The smog is a direct consequence of Santiago's otherwise spectacular setting. In a basin-like environment surrounded by the Andes, the city is the perfect place for fog to settle.

Santiago's skyline now features South America's tallest building, the Costanera Center, slowly rising above the city after a stop-start construction history.

It's a symbol of Chile's newfound economic strength and its resilience in recovering from the massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake of 2010.

But standing above all, atop the summit of Cerro San Cristobal, is the 22m high milk-white statue of the Virgin Mary.

I feel for her, as I gaze up at her. She could do with a face mask and perhaps so could I, what with all that smog. Nowadays, though, the Virgin Mary is surely smiling more approvingly on this city that is rapidly reinventing itself.

It's to this unthreatening South American capital that Qantas last month launched a thrice-weekly return service from Sydney after withdrawing its previous South American route to the energetic, though slightly more distant, Argentine capital, Buenos Aires.

Santiago as a centrally located entry point to South America makes sense.

Buoyed by that prosperous Chilean economy, rated as the most politically stable and successful in South America, the city feels like a place overcoming a troubled past that featured a cruel, two-decade-long dictatorship, led by the notorious General Augusto Pinochet.

Santiago also undoubtedly represents the perfect base from which to launch a tour of Chile, a country blessed with spectacular attractions such as Patagonia to the capital's south and the Atacama Desert to its north or even a tour of the South American continent.

Santiago is conveniently situated between Chile's best wine-producing regions, which produce quality, affordable drops that are challenging Australia's wine export industry.

The nation's second city and major port, Valparaiso a kind of distressed Marseilles is only 90 minutes or so away. Santiago, like Valparaiso, has certainly smartened up its act with chic new boutique hotels and restaurants.

The 15-room Aubrey Hotel, in the lively Bellavista restaurant and nightclub district, was developed by an Australian, Mark Cigana, and Briton Will Martin.

It took three years to renovate the main house, built in 1927, with Cigana living on the building site, immersing himself in the history of the building as well as Chilean culture.

For several decades, the dining room of the house was the scene of legendary Thursday political lunches, an open house for leading figures in Santiago's political and social life, including Pablo Neruda, the Chilean Nobel Prize-winning poet and communist.

But The Aubrey now has competition from Santiago's latest designer hotel entry, the 87-room Hotel Noi Vitacura.

This hotel is in the fashionable Alonso de Cordova area, full of chic boutiques and restaurants that remind you greatly of Los Angeles' Beverly Hills.

One evening I position myself poolside on the rooftop terrace of the chic Noi.

I watch the sun set over the skyline and the foothills of the Andes and sip a pisco sour, the must-try local spirit the origin of which, a little like the pavlova in Australia and New Zealand, is disputed by Chile and Peru.

Before me is the jagged outline of the all-enveloping Andes, or at least their foothills, that form the backdrop to the Chilean capital. Some higher peaks, even in the unseasonal heat of the autumn, are snow-capped.

Back on the tourist trail, most visitors to Santiago will inevitably gravitate to two sights: Plaza de Armas, founded in 1541 by the conquistador Pedro de Valdivia, with a statue of him depicted atop a horse in the square; and Mercado Central, the city's old marketplace.

The pleasant Plaza de Armas, decorated with flower-filled horse carriages and the easels of artists, is dominated by Catedral Metropolitana, constructed between 1748 and 1800.

If you head to Mercado Central around lunchtime, expect to be pounced on by restaurant touts on the footpath before you even enter the building.

Inside, the markets feature a roof that is a masterpiece of 19th-century ironwork, imported from England.

The markets are full of fishmongers' restaurants aimed at tourists but at which you can be assured of a decent feed of quality seafood, perhaps accompanied by a local sauvignon blanc or chardonnay.

On my penultimate day in Santiago I'm enveloped in smog again, except this time it's inside a smoke-filled cafe though it's no ordinary one. Chileans were traditionally not enthusiastic coffee-drinkers.

As a way of encouraging more cafes, Santiago invented the rather dubious concept of "Coffee with Legs".

Now these cafes have become an essential part of a visit to Santiago, though don't expect gourmet caffe lattes, and do be careful requesting a cappuccino with "two lumps".

Coffee with Legs outlets are mostly in the central business district, or "Sanhattan", as it is nicknamed (and it can feel as busy as Wall Street, too), attracting an all-male clientele, where the buxom waitresses wear short skirts and deliver coffee of undistinguished nature to nonetheless appreciative customers.

Yet compared with its racier counterpart capitals in South America, that's about as a saucy as Santiago gets. And these days, that's how the once-troubled Chilean capital prefers it.

*The writer travelled courtesy of Qantas and Tourism Chile.

*** Go2

SANTIAGO

* Getting there

Qantas now operates three return non-stop flights a week between Sydney and Santiago with connections to other major South American capitals on refitted Boeing 747-400ER aircraft.

Call 13 13 13 or visit qantas.com.au

* Staying there

Hotel Noi Vitacura (www.noivitacura.cl/en) and The Aubrey (theaubrey.com) are two of Santiago's most stylish and well-located hotels. Alternatively, most of the international hotel chains are also represented in the Chilean capital.

** Turismo de Chile: chile.travel