Santiago, Chile

 Friday, March 15

Sunny and 29C. 🌞

We decided to spend one day seeing Santiago before flying home.  Santiago is the capitol of Chile, with a population of about 6 million.  It was founded in 1541 and its beautiful baroque and gothic buildings are surrounded by the Andes Mountains.  This is a winter shot, because right now during summer, all you see is smog.

imagecredit https://www.christiesrealestate.com/blog/destination-santiago-explore-the-chilean-capital-citys-cultural-highlights/

Today we decided to play it safe and book a private full day tour for the 2 of us.  A bit pricey, but we felt safer.

The tour company wanted an extra $100 to pick us up at our hotel, so we took an Uber for $15 instead. We met our guide Francesca at Santa Lucia Hill.  We didn't know we would have a driver, Juanita, as well.

Santa Lucia Hill is a small hill in the middle of the city.  The hill was conquered by Pedro de Valdivia in 1540.  We ran into a couple from our Montevideo bike tour here LOL.  Here is a view from the top. Note the haze.

This is Neptune Fountain.  It was a pitstop for season 7 of the Amazing Race.

On our way down, we heard some chirping from under a bush.  Francesca thought she would rescue the poor bird.  After a few minutes, we figured out it was noise from a hose 😀

After San Lucia Hill, we walked over to Iglesia de San Francisco, Santiago de Chile, consecrated in 1622.  It has withstood 15 earthquakes of magnitude over 7.  You can see the earthquake damage.

Then we drove to Plaza de Armas, which is the main square of Santiago.  Juanita had trouble parking because there was a demonstration happening in front of the government building.  Francesca had no idea what the demonstration was for, "We have one here everyday."

We visited the Metropolitan Cathedral of Santiago de Chile (where we ran into a couple from yesterday's tour LOL):

This is the Palace of Justice (Palacio de Los Tribunales de Justicia de Santiago).  I think they call a lot of buildings palaces.

Francesca took us to the Bellavista neighbourhood, which she kept describing as "bohemian".  We've never been quite exactly sure what that means?  But they had lots of interesting murals so we walked a few streets.

We found a small local Chilean restaurant and ate like the locals:

That was about it for the tour.  We were fine with getting an Uber back, but Juanita wasn't comfortable with that for some reason and drove us all the way back to the hotel.  But please don't tell the tour company.  We got back at 4:30 pm.

We're taking it easy tonight, since we are catching a 5 am shuttle to the airport in the morning.  This should be our last blog unless something very exciting happens.

Tomorrow we'll arrive at the airport a little after 5 am.  Of course there are no DIRECT flights, so our first flight is at 9 am with Latam Air from Santiago to Punta Cana (7.5 hours).  We have a 2 and a half hour layover, which is generally what we feel comfortable with.  The flight leaves Punta Cana on Westjet at 6 pm and is about 5 hours long.  We will arrive in Toronto LATE!!!  

A long day, but we are looking forward to being home!