Feb. 6/10 – Chile
Day 189/193 – We made it to Santiago Chile, and have been staying at the Casa Roja hostel for the past three nights. They only have one computer, and our computer was out of commission because we mistakenly left our converters in the van. We didn’t really prepare very well for our backpacking trip, but it all worked out. We bought a converter for it last night, so now we are good to go.
Our Super Bowl day was wonderful. We spent it with our new found friends, Ali & Phin (from England/Scotland), and introduced them to the food, celebrations, and all of the ins and outs of American Football. Ali and I made 7 layer dip, guacamole, and had a few other dips, which filled us all up until we couldn’t lift one more chip! The outcome of the game was very depressing, but there is next year, right?
Phin & Ali
The next day, early in the morning, we took off for Santiago by way of plane. We left the hostel an hour late, 4.00am, because our alarm decided all the sudden not to work, but we made the flight with plenty of time. We spent the next 20 hours on the plane and in the airports of San Jose, Costa Rica, and Lima, Peru and finally made our way to Santiago, Chile. Then we waited another 4.5 hours for the buses to start running (we arrived in Santiago about 3.00am) so we could go find a hostel.
View from Costa Rica’s airport outside of San Jose
It was a very long trip, with only a few hours of sleep, but we saved over $200usd by taking a longer flight. Normally, I would vouch for spending a bit more money for less traveling hours. Though I am happy we took this route, because there is a reciprocity tax when someone from the USA flies into Chile, and we ended up giving Chile all of our savings, $100usd a head. Ouch, did that hurt our budget! Since we hadn’t bought our travel book for South America yet we hadn’t done the research on entry via plane. It didn’t cross my mind that it would cost so much. It has been tough finding travel books, and when we did find one it was outrageously priced ($80usd) – we were told Argentina has better prices. We’ll just jot down the information we need until we get there. 😉
It was been said about Santiago that it is not a great city; because of it being dirty and very smoggy. Personally, I don’t think Santiago is very dirty, and have really enjoyed walking around and exploring the city. It is smoggy, but nothing worse than the other big cities I have been to, or lived in (NYC). Our first day in Santiago was tiring. We didn’t take naps so that we could sleep really well that night. We weren’t able to check into the hostel until 1.00pm – so we went to a movie to relax our bodies.
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downtown street in Santiago________sculpture at a pedestrian bridge
Below pics from Plaza de Armas
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there are a line of artists painting and selling work.
On our second day we took a small wine tour of the Cousino-Macul winery, www.cousinomacul.com. It was fun to tour the processing area and the cellars, and the wine wasn’t bad.
The orginal wine barrels
New age technology
the reserve wines
That night we met up for dinner with a friend of a friend’s. Funny how those connections can work! Ale is a friend of my friend Sarah, who used to live in Chile – but is now in wonderful Seattle. 🙂 Sarah got us in contact with each other. Thanks soo much Sarah! Ale, Claudio, and their friend took us to a really good pizza place, and we had great time. We spent the next afternoon exploring the city with Ale and Claudio – they have been so generous and nice, spending time with us. Thank you guys soo much and we are really having fun with you!
Claudio, Ale, and Jason in Santiago
This morning we found out that the ship Henry is on will be arriving six days late, on Wednesday. 🙁 This is horrible news for us because now we will be late meeting the Brookhouse-Gil family in Uruguay. We expected the ship to be a few days late, but not this many. We can only hope for a smooth journey once he arrives, so we can get to Uruguay as soon as possible, until then we will continue to enjoy Chile.
at the hostel with all the great people we are meeting.
Tags: 15 - Chile, chile
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Hello again from Alaska! 🙂 Still reading about your travels- glad they are mostly going smoothly and I hope Henry arrives soon. My condolences about the Seahawks; they are the closest thing we have to a home team here, so everyone was sad.
Anyway, just got your letter today. I liked the return address. It only took a month (exactly) to arrive- and it was good to have some mail love.
Alison
yaaay! were on the cover of the rolling guys!
Ack, the pictures are killing me. Only 6 more weeks until I am back in Chile. Enjoy and don’t forget to try Entre Masas in Reñaca. Best empanadas ever. Have fun!