Santiago de Chile

Our next adventure is our trip through South America. Because South America is huge we picked the following countries: Chile, Bolivia, Peru and Brazil (maybe Uruguay at the end). We started in the capital of Chile: Santiago de Chile. First, we needed some time to rest (recover from the jetlag after the long flight from Sydney, planning our trip, enjoying the life in a city, etc.), so we stayed one week in Santiago. We had a very kind host Rolando, where we could stay for more than a week. He picked us up at the airport and showed us our new “home” at his place. It was good to have some information from a local, so we knew from the beginning, where we could go and where we shouldn’t go. He also showed us immediately the Chilean culture and the typical food. In the beginning we had to get used to his jokes, his funny words and his warm hugs. But we realized that he was a very friendly person with a good heart. We had so many nice talks and we felt comfortable to spend time with him, drinking Pisco-la, Pisco-Sour and good red wine from Chile (with the special grape type: Carmenere). We explored the city by our own, we walked up to Cerro San Cristobal for a nice view of the city, travelled by a local bus to the Templo Bahai nearby, met Rolando and his friend for typical Chilean food (pastel el choclo y paila marina) in the city centre and relaxed in some of the nice city parks along the river (with little water). At the weekend Rolando had time to show us the nice mountains close to Santiago (around 2hours driving by car). The Andes is the mountain chain, which is at the border from Chile to Argentina. We travelled to the reservoir “Embalse el Yeso” and saw a nice waterfall. After we enjoyed an amazing sunset with beautiful colours, we went to the Termas Valle del Collina for having a relaxing bath in hot springs of a volcano. The next day, Rolando showed us the nice coast close to Santiago (another 1.5 hours driving in the opposite direction). We drove to Valparaiso, which is a nice town with a lot of colourful houses and nice painted walls. This town remains us of a village in the south of Europe somewhere at the sea (it could have been in Italy, Spain or Portugal). Because this weekend, there was a special cultural festivity, we had the chance to see traditional music, clothes and dances on the main Plaza. We even had the chance to visit the traditional building of the Chilean Marine from inside. What a lucky day! Valparaiso has the biggest port in Chile, which we wanted to explore more, as soon as we start travelling together with Lisa. Lisa arrived one week later in Santiago de Chile and she will join us for the next two months of travelling. 😊 When we met Lisa at the airport it was amazing to see her again after 5 months. We wanted to show her the whole city and all the food we have discovered so far. Lucky her, she hasn’t had the same bad jetlag as we had, so we showed her all the nice places of Santiago in two days before we started travelling together. On the last evening in Santiago, Rolando cooked a delicious dinner for us with salmon and risotto. It was hard to say good-bye after this nice time we spent with him. But as usual, we never say good-bye, we always say, see you again somewhere on this earth! 😉