Santiago

We are on our next adventure

One country down, 10 to go!

We have made it to Santiago!

After an 11 hour flight we have mde it to our first country of 11 for this trip. First stop Santiago, Chile. Last stop our new home in the UK. We are staying at Santiago Backpackers Hostel which is just fine for a couple of nights. The location is great and the staff are super helpful.

01/10/2018: Day 1

I will be the first to admit that Day 1 in Chile was a complete write off. Despite the warnings, and believing that I would be fine, the jetlag flying from New Zealand to Chile was an absolute killer. Add to that the fact that we were more than a little upset having just said goodbye to our lives, family, friends and animals in NZ meant that we spent most of Monday afternoon asleep.

Oh well, tomorrow is a new day.

02/10/2018: Day 2

Or as we are calling it, Day 1 mark 2.

We kicked off the day with the Free Tour Santiago, a free walking tour of central Santiago. The tour was great! They take you around all the major landmarks in the Central City, Santa Lucia and Bella Vista neighbourhoods. The tour company is a company based out of Europe and the guides work on tips (normally about $10USD per person is recomended). We had lunch while on the tour at a local cafe were we found both Twinnings tea (so happy) and had our first empanada. Louise and I are hooked on this food, it is so good. Especially the Pino Empanadas!

After the tour we headed up the Cerro San Cristobal. The Cerro San Cristobal is the tallest hill in Santiago. You can climb up it if you want, it will take you about 40 minutes to hike up, or you can take the Funicular. We got return tickets for the Funicular and the Cable Car for 2 people for $9200 Pesos. The Funicular is well worth it if just to avoid the climb, while the Cable Car gives you amazing views over the whole park.

After a quick look through the Metropolitan Cathedral (worth a visit) and the National Museum (not so much, but luckily free) we headed to dinner in Bella Vista to try some local food for dinner. I had a Pisco Sour with dinner and Louise had a Piscola, both were lethal so drink with care.

03/10/2018: Day 3

On day three the main mission of the day was to get a bus down to Vina Del Mar on the coast of Chile. Before we headed to the bus we went up Cerro Santa Lucia, which was just up the road from the hostel. The hill offered amazing views of Santiago. Not quite as good as Cerro San Cristobal, and the gardens within the park are amazing. It took us a little while to figure out how to get to the top of the hill, but once we were there we took a few photos from the very top platform before wandering back down through all the various gardens.

We then made our way over to the Pre-Colombian Art Museum. It is incredible the size of the collection, and also how well they have managed to preserve all of the artifacts. The contents of the museum covers as much of the previous cultures of Chile and of wider South America as they have been able to collect/recover. We paid 9,000 pesos for entry, Zoe got away with being a student for 3,000 pesos, and the fee is well worth it. It is a shame that while they have preserved artifacts of the ancient cultures in Chile, they have not made the effort to keep the cultures themselves alive.

After that we collected our back packs and made our way to the bus. Another good thing about Santiago Backpackers is that they let us leave our big bags with them for the couple of days we went down to the coast.

05/10/2018: Day 3

We arrived back in Santiago after our two hour bus ride up from the coast. It was a beautiful day in Santiago so after getting lunch from our Neighbourhood bakery (Dumonts, I highly recommend) we headed to the park to enjoy the sunshine.

We made our way to the MAC (Museo de Arte Contemporaneo), while it was good it was hard to understand the art. In a way it was comforting to know that modern art makes no sense in any country.

Santiago has been a great first stop on our adventure. Tomorrow we fly out to our next country: Uruguay.