We decided to pay for
long term parking at the airport, which was especially important since we were
leaving a lot of our camping and mountaineering gear in the car. We checked in
and then immediately headed for the crepe stand at the airport. Over some
nutella and fruit crepes I realized that the flight we had hurriedly bought in
Paraguay, so that we would have proof of leaving Bolivia for our visas, landed
first in La Paz for a quick stop over, and then in Lima, Peru for too many
hours (7?) before heading to Santiago, Chile. Ooops.
We paid our tax to
leave the airport, and headed through security and customs. I did not
realize that our flight stopped in La Paz, just the plane change in Lima. After
a seemingly short flight of right around an hour from Santa Cruz, we landed in
Lima…. Way up in a desert, surrounded by snow capped mountains, and no ocean in
sight? Ohhhh boy, did we get on the wrong plane and the Bolivians didn’t notice
either? Then I checked the flight itinerary once again, and sure enough, in
rather small writing, the flight information mentioned a stop in La Paz. It
involved some pretty incredible scenery at least.
After getting to Lima, the real one this time, we had 6
hours to kill, which meant drinking a few beers and eating for several hours
straight. Nothing we couldn’t handle. The drinking made it a bit easier to fall
asleep on the plane, but the meal services interrupted the sleep every couple
hours since we aren’t the kind of people to pass up free (or already paid for)
meals.
We landed in Santiago around 6 in the morning, and
immediately after stepping outside I realized two things; it was way colder
here than when we had driven through the first time a month or two prior, and I
was significantly unprepared for the cold wearing shorts and a t-shirt fresh
from humid Bolivia. I figured we wouldn’t be walking too much between the
airport and wherever we decided to sleep so I decided to hold out on digging
through my bag to find more layers. We caught a bus from the airport to the
center of Santiago, and got off at the last stop which didn’t seem to have any
road signs by it. Fortunately several people were eager to help. Just by acting
like lost tourists a couple men gave us street names and directions, and then a fluent English speaking Chilean lady walked us
part way to a hostel she had worked at? And while walking the rest of the way
to the hostel, a couple who had just dropped their kids off at school picked us
up and drove us the rest of the way to a hostel. All of this happened without
any kind of solicitation. Good start for Santiago.
We napped for the rest
of the morning and then set off to the Asian side of Santiago to purchase some
Siracha, of course. What else would we do in Santiago? We ended up touring all
over Santiago that day and likely drank beer and played Foosball that night.
After a few similar days we decided to go to Valparaiso, a city on the ocean a
short drive from Santiago.
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| An exhibit at the museum of memories, which commemorates victims of Pinochet's dictatorship |
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| The tracks of one of the elevators (ascensor) |
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| We also finally drank good beer. Brewdog, from Scotland. It was a good night. |
Back in Santiago we
were treated to dinner by my Grandma Lee, at a restaurant that was recommended
by my mom. Unexpected, right? We attempted to look nice (looking at the pictures now, I guess I could have brushed my hair... but I put it up!), but you know how that
goes, and arrived at a restaurant that was so fancy you had to ring a doorbell.
It wasn’t too uncomfortable though, some people were even wearing hoodies, so
we didn’t look too bad. We had abalone, an avocado salad, John had partridge,
and I had salmon with shrimp sauce. All of it was fantastic.
Yum!
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