South American adventure

Happy holidays everyone!

We arrived in Santiago on Xmas day so as you can imagine, there wasn't a lot open especially near our hotel, Marriott Santiago. Our hotel is in the Las Condes area which is a business area where a lot of richer people live and is close to a nice mall and park called Parque arauco but it's far from the major tourist areas (metro ride away). The first evening we explored the Bellavista area and ate at a local Chilean restaurant called Galindo. A cool area of restaurants and cafes is called Patio Bellavista. Besides empanadas, we haven't have the best luck with Chilean food so far. There were 2 women that were very nice and started a conversation with us at dinner when they saw us unsure what to do with one of the local dishes we ordered. In general, we have found Chilean people to be very genuinely friendly without an ulterior motive for a tip, selling you something, etc. 

The second day we explored the downtown/tourist area including plaza des armes, Santa Lucia market, main cathedral, and climbed to the top of Santa Lucia hill for nice views of the city and mountains in the backdrop. We reserved some of the sightseeing for when Arif and Shy arrive on Dec 30. We had dinner at Astrid y Gaston (Providentia area) which is a restaurant that was famous in Lima and I had regretted not going to it when we were in Peru because we were on a backpackers budget. It was definitely fine dining but very tasty including a random dessert of crispy bananas with Quinoa, passion fruit honey, ice cream etc with incredible presentation!

We took a day trip to Cajon del Maipo which is a volcano in the Andes mountain range. Although what we actually saw including the waterfalls, canon, mountains, condors, etc weren't very impressive to us compared to what we have in Alberta or New Zealand, it was overall a nice day trip getting to chat with 4 other fellow travellers from Argentina, U.S and a guy whose studying in the US but from Saudi Arabia. Our guide was also fantastic and had such a humble perspective on the world. 

We went through a company called AndoAndes - although the trip was overpriced for what is was, we had a good time. 

Adam and I haven't taken a vacation in a long time where there weren't a lot of people who spoke English. Someone should make a movie on what tourists looks like trying to explain or ask for something using the few words they know in a particular language mixed with a lot of sign language. It would be hilarious! Even when we are using the correct words, we are often not understood because we don't have the Spanish accent. For example, the guy at Starbucks wrote Adams name as "Aron" on his cup. 

Overall, Santiago is a great city that is totally liveable as its modern, feels very safe but has a lot of culture. Although I wouldn't put it in my top 5 cities to visit or anything, it's a nice place to visit. It's a lot like Calgary in sown ways: cold in the winter, hot in the summer but with cool summer nights and close proximity to the mountains and nature. There is a lot of American influence in terms of restaurants, fast food and cafes (I.e. Pf Changs, subway, KFC, Dunkin donuts, etc.) It's far more organized and orderly than I was expecting compared to Peru and Ecuador.  Santiago isn't a cheap city. In fact very comparable to Canada with a few exceptions. Metro tickets and taxis are a bit cheaper and tipping at restaurants is 10% (automatically put on but you can chose to keep it or not). 

Next stop Valparaiso/vina del mar then back to Santiago!