Santiago last day

 

Our last day of vacation today, we leave tonight to go home.  We decided to pay an extra $40 to have our room until 4PM, we are planning on being outside today and it is going to be hot, a shower will be needed before we get on that long plane ride.

Someone tenting right on the main pedestrian walkway in the morning

When you are up early it is so quiet, especially on a weekend

Huge nativity scene in the main square

Walked to the central market.  Lots of vendors just setting up

The market is full of restaurants as well, everyone trying to get us to stop for breakfast

The cathedral is open today, so we got to visit

THese were life size, I can't imagine moving them, they must be so heavy

We walked around looking for the free museum that we had seen on the walking tour earlier.  Turns out it was kinda free, Andre was free because he was over 60, I think Wendy was $2.00

Arianna would have loved this, too big to bring home

This birds of CHile display was really nice

Photography part of the museum

Next another walk in order to Santa Lucia Hill

View from Santa Lucia Hill.  In the distance you can see where we took the funicular the other day up the mountain

Lunch break. $10 for a soup, main and dessert (Jello)

Last ice cream break

Very fast taxi driver to the airport.  The pickup date at the hotel was mixed up and he was about 30 minutes late picking us up, I think he made up the time on the drive!  No traffic today as its the weekend.  

Red eye home, but it did go pretty fast.  Customs was a bit of mess in Toronto with luggage, but we did make it in lots of time for our connection, many missed theirs.  We got in early to Toronto and I don't think they were ready for us, computers were down, and they made us pick up our  luggage eventually after a bit of a wait.  Passed the time for us as we had a 3 hour connection.

End of an amazing trip, now on to planning the next.

Valparaíso day tour

 

Today we have booked a small bus tour to the city of Valparaiso which is about 1 1/2 hours away from Santiago.  Valparaiso has been designated as a Unisco World Heritage Site.  Started off being picked up in a van at our hotel, only to be transported to a large bus.  Wendy especially was not happy.  This is going to be a long day.

Vineyards on the way to Valapraiso

Stopped for the wine tasting part of the tour, which was really a big market where there was a large selection of wines with a couple you could taste.  So many tour buses stopped here.

Our bus, it was easy to find at least

So many beautiful murals in this city.  We were dropped off at the top of the city, and walked a few km to the bottom where the bus met us.  

Even the stairs were painted

This one was amazing, so lifelike

Piano keys on this stairway

From a lookout into the harbour, harbour was not pretty

Andre and 1 other woman on our tour did this slide

Army/Navy building

Main square full of vendors at the bottom of the hill, no time to visit

Vina del Mar, a beautiful beach spot where we stopped for lunch

Castle on the water

Lunch was not included on the tour.  Our guide took us to a spot all set up for us, at the back of the restaurant.  Quite expensive, and not really what we wanted, found the guide outside, asked what time we were to meet up, and off we go to find something cheaper/lighter and more to our liking.

Found this place where you order your protein, veggies, starch etc, and they prepare and call your name.  No English menu here, luckily I think it was the owner spoke English and he filled out this form for us with everything we wanted.  He has been to Montreal to change planes, was excited that we were Canadian.

Lunch beer

Beautiful beach.  Signs up that it was closed for swimming, but many were in, but not very deep.  Waves were pretty big, we think that is why it was closed, rip tides

Luckily if you lived up top you had a funicular to get up!

This is about as far out as we saw anyone go

Andre had an ice cream here, no idea what hot ice was, but they had ice cream

Back in Santiago and we decide on Sushi for supper.  Really good, but so much!

One more ice cream stop at Burger King on the way back to the hotel