Last Day in Santiago AND South America

This is it.  Another wonderful trip comes to a close.  We had a nice relaxing morning while we packed, had breakfast, etc.  We had to be out of our room by noon, which was very civilized.

Gerard and I went out for a bit of a walk.  We crossed the river, which looks like this.  Filled with silt and mud.  This is snow-melt from the Andes, but it picks up an awful lot of dirt on the way down.  This diminishes to a trickle eventually.



Once we were finished packing, we took our bags down to the lobby for them to keep it, then went up by the pool for a while.  We just read a bit then decided to go up the funicular to the top of San Cristobal.  As we were heading over there (right around the corner), we ran into Dan & Joanne who had been standing in line for a while, and not moving.  So we said, "to heck with it", and went off to find a beer and a bite.

We didn't want to eat too much since we had a food tour this afternoon, which would take us up to the time we had to catch a cab to the airport.

Here are a couple of more dogs that run around everywhere.  It's like people just let them outside, and they fend for themselves.  So they're everywhere on the streets.  The good news is, people feed them. We really didn't see any starving dogs, in fact, just the opposite.  And they're all friendly, which means they don't seem to be abused at all, and apparently they're not.  They lie across the sidewalk, and people go around them.  Kinda funny.

And here's a dog house someone has built for the dogs.  You see these in different spots all over the city.



Some more mural art.

So we started our food tour with FoodyChile - Colin was our guide - a young man from Iowa originally.  We started out with that drink I talked about yesterday.  It was better this time - not quite as sweet.  Then we had this - called Chorrillana.  That's fries, roast beef, and fried eggs.  Yummy.

We walked by some young people practicing drums, as in a marching band, or something.

We had some very unique ice cream at a specialty shop.  Then we went for some local wines at a restaurant and had some unique Chilean tapas-type food.  The restaurant had these figures on an upper wall - looked like they were climbing in windows.

Our hotel had arranged with Colin to have a taxi go to the hotel and pick up our bags, then meet us where our food tour ended to pick us up.  Colin communicated with both the hotel and the taxi, and got us to where we needed to be.  We counted our bags - yep, all there, and we then headed to the airport.

Our Air Canada flight came in from Buenos Aires.  We loaded it up, and took off for Toronto around 9:30 pm their time, touching down in Toronto at 5:40 am, EST.  Probably the same plane we went down on.

Wow, coming back through customs as a Canadian is getting easier and easier.  You use the automatic kiosks.  Then there were virtually no line-ups (could have been the time), and we didn't have to be grilled by anyone, just a couple of customs agents standing at the end before we left to get our checked bags that just looked at our passports and said "bye bye".  No questions...nothing.

We were home about 7:45 am.

A wonderful trip, going to places I would never have gone if I hadn't been on a cruise ship.  But the cities of Buenos Aires and Santiago (especially Santiago) were terrific!

ALWAYS GREAT TO BE HOME!!!

Santiago, Chile

Today we had a tour of the City of Santiago.  We didn't know this, but Santiago means St. James in English.  So there you go.  Tiago means James...who knew?

Our guide was there to pick us up this morning at 10 am.  And who was it, but Luis!  Our driver/guide from yesterday.  Perfect!  The hotel had arranged both days, so I guess it's not a stretch to think Luis would be there.  And he does live in Santiago.

This city has about 6 million inhabitants.  That's big.  I won't bore you with pictures of the buildings, parks, and churches we visited and their significance.  Just a few different photos from the places we went.

We stopped at a park.  A true hippy-mobile was parked there.

They have exercise equipment in the park.  Very cool.  Here's one.

Some pretty neat swans with black necks and heads.

We then drove up to the top of the San Cristobal hills.  Very expensive homes up here.  The views would be terrific if it wasn't for the smoke.  About 70-100 km away there are forest/grass fires burning and it's causing a lot of smoke over the city.  In addition of course is the 30C heat and smog.  I tried to improve the picture without much luck.

An interesting cat walk from one building to another.  Quite high above the street.  Usually they're at a mezzanine level.  This one must have been the 6th or 7th floor level.

Here's a different kind of drink you can get in Chile called Mote con Huesillo.  Made with husked wheat (on the bottom) and cooked peaches, then served chilled.  Not my kind of drink - too sweet for me.

In the main square are various historic monuments.  This was one on the pavement showing the City of Santiago in 18xx (something).  On one side is the river, and the other is the...WHAT?  Where are we again?  La Canada river, which doesn't really exist any more.

Last night we ate at the Como Agua Para Chocolate restaurant (there was a movie with the same name).  We looked inside to eat, but decided to eat out on the sidewalk.  While we were there, we noticed this table that had a family sitting at it.  I didn't want to take a picture then, but since we were by there today, I stepped inside and snapped a shot.  Pretty cool, eh?  Sitting at a bed.

Our tour was over around 2 pm and we were getting pretty hungry and thirsty.  Our waiter obliged us with a photo.

As I've mentioned before, sometimes translations are rather funny.  Check out the "Widower Cat".  A half METER of loin???  Yikes, that's a lot of meat.  And what kind of meat is it?????

This is our hotel, The Aubrey, from outside the gate.

Tonight we went out for a "light" dinner.  Joanne had a Fisherman's salad, and I had a Caesar salad with chicken.  Really little, eh?  Neither of us could eat it all.

I posted a little video on Facebook as I couldn't load it here.  Take a look - kinda funny.

Off the Ship

Our sea voyage is done.  This morning we got off the ship and we were met by our driver/tour guide for the day, Luis.  He drove us around Valparaiso.  Although the downtown area is fairly flat at the pier, everyone lives on the hill.  And quite the hill it is.  The murals/graffiti are amazing.  And they are everywhere.  Here's one example.



From Valparaiso, he drove us to our first winery in the Casablanca region where we had a very informative tour, and a wine tasting.  Look who's picture was in front of the winery!



Beautiful winery and they like to produce wines in a unique, old-fashioned way.  Some pinot grigio grapes.

Love this sign.



Next we drove to......WHAT?  Where are we?

Hmmm.  That threw us for a bit of a loop.

We did another wine tasting at Casona Vermonte.  We also had lunch here.  Wow.  This building is huge!  I've never seen a winery quite like it.  We have some nice ones at home, but this is crazy.  Our orchestra could set up in the lobby very easily.  In fact, 4 of our orchestras could set up in the lobby very easily.  This is a ginormous wine press in front of the lobby.



Well, I do kinda like gin 'n tonic too.  They sold this (we didn't buy any).



The Chilean flag outside the winery.



We were going to go to another winery, but they wouldn't allow us a tasting without doing a 1-1/2 hour tour.  No thanks.  We weren't interested, so our guide took us to our hotel in Santiago.  The drive is about 130 km straight from the pier in Valparaiso to Santiago.

I was taking this photo out of the side of the car, and I was too fast, but then again, not fast enough to get 2.  The baby was behind.  They were at the side of the road.



The Aubrey Hotel, Santiago.  This is one awesome place to be spending our last 2-1/2 days in South America.  After more or less unpacking, we changed into our bathing suits and spent the next couple of hours by the pool.  Beautiful.



And I was taught by the bartender how to make Pisco Sour.  (Actually, the bartender could teach me anything :)



Very simple.  I'll have to see if I can find Pisco at home (grape liqueur).

We went out to find a casual place to have some dinner around 8 pm.  The area we're staying in is sort of Bohemian, and there are tons of restaurants nearby.  As we're walking down the street, and later as we're having dinner, these short parades go by.  Fun place to be.

By the way, I'm still "rocking".  Whenever I sit or stand still, I feel like I'm on the ship.  I'll get over it soon.

Last Day at Sea

We had a fun last day at sea.  I took no photos at all though.

We played Euchre with Dan & Joanne up on the pool deck until about 1 pm our time.  It was a beautiful day - sunny and warm, although foggy on the sea.  The ship's foghorn was blasting every 3 minutes or so.  We then grabbed some pizza, other nibblies, and a beer, and headed back to their suite to watch the inauguration of the character south of the border.  After that was more or less done, we left.

After a while, Gerard and I went out for a bit.  I had some money I wanted to donate to the casino, so we did that for a little while, then went back up to the sun deck for a while to take in some rays.

At 6, we met up with the Clements in the Windjammer Bar where the Sun Band was playing jazz (they are terrific musicians).  We watched them until they were finished 2 sets and it was almost 8 pm and time for dinner.

After dinner, we went to the theatre to watch the Amber Strings (a trio) for a while, but Gerard and I hadn't packed, so we left early to do that as we had to have our luggage out in the hall by midnight.

So that's it.  We're now docked in Valparaiso this Saturday morning.  Our sailing is over.  We have a wine tour when we get off the ship and they'll take us to our hotel in Santiago.

Puerto Montt

Today was our last port of call from the ship.  The next time we get off, we're off permanently.  So this was Puerto Montt.  It's the port city at the southern end of the most populated area of Chile.  We're now out of the south and out of Patagonia.  The port is buried among Chilean fjords.  We came up a channel to get here and will be going back out the same way.

We hired a tour guide and we started out in Puerto Montt itself.  From here, we had a good lookout over the city.  Although it was sunny for most of the day, it was still foggy in the distance - low clouds.

We then went up to Lake Llanquihue in the Los Lagos region.  The town of Frutillar is on this lake and is known for its music and music festivals.  All along the lake edge in the town are "statues" of musical instruments - like this piano.

We went to an outdoor museum there.  The area was settled by Germans and people from that area.  Much of the architecture in the area looks Bavarian.

After a while, we needed a banos and a coffee was also in order.  The person in the middle of this photo is Carolina, our tour guide.

And along with the coffee, we had a pastry.  Yum.  Notice the treble clef of chocolate on the side.

There is a very big-leafed plant here (couldn't tell you the name), and the stem is much like our rhubarb.  Gerard gives you some idea of the size of the leaf.

One of the attractions of this town is the theatre built on the lake.  It's a beautiful facility.  We couldn't go inside, but this is a photo on the wall of what the auditorium looks like.  A concert here would be wonderful!

After we left Frutillar, Dan mentioned something about grabbing a beer somewhere.  At one point, our driver did a U-turn because this sign was sitting out, which essentially says "get beer here".  So we did.



Here we are enjoying a local beer at the side of the road on their stand-up patio looking over the lake.  Notice the weather is warming as well.

Because we can't seem to get enough food and drink, we had lunch at this place.  It's a tiny little spot, but the food was authentically Chilean.  This is in Puerto Varas, another town at the end of the lake.

The timeframe in between was quite a bit more than it sounds.  We spent about 6 hours with them.  That's Carolina on the right, and Manuel, our driver, next to her.

Back on the ship, the clouds are lifting and we're starting to see Calbuco Volcano much better.  This is a volcano that erupted on 3 different days in April, 2015.  Quite a spectacular scene, apparently.  There are actually 3 volcanoes across the lake, but none were visible while we were in Frutillar, and we can only see this one here in Puerto Montt.

Tomorrow we will be at sea, then we will be arriving in Valparaiso, the port city of Santiago, Saturday morning.  My next blog will be from Santiago.

Puerto Chacabuco

Yesterday, we were at Puerto Chacabuco.  Sometimes I don't have enough time to create and post anything before we've left the port and I'm out of service range again, like yesterday.

This is a very small port town lying within the Chilean Fjords.  There are lots of rivers and waterfalls everywhere in this area, coming out of the Andes Mountains.

We had booked a tour with enPatagonia.  By the way, all of this area in the southern part of South America is the Patagonia region.  We stopped at a couple of different bridges.  This one had a nice scene looking up a small river, full of fishing boats.

A lot of the bridges are suspension bridges.  Here we are on one...

that only one car at a time can go over (that's what the sign says).  I don't have the photo, but a taxi came right up behind this van while it was on the bridge, along with several people.  Just a suggestion.

We then went to a very nice waterfall in the area, called the Virgin Waterfalls, or some similar translation - referring to The Virgin Mary, of course.

To cap off our tour, we went to a farm/ranch for lunch.  Here are Dan and Gerry walking up the lane of a farm we had to walk through before we got to the one we were aiming for.

This unique tree grows here, in English it's called the Monkey Puzzle Tree.

So we arrive at the place for our lunch, and are greeted by several people on the lawn, and then by these 2 inside - one offering Pisco Sour, and the other a local "bread" which can be filled with a salsa.  It was REALLY good.  And the Pisco Sour was pretty good too.  It's made from grapes (better than grappa, we're told) and mixed with lemon juice and sugar.  Very simple, and very tasty.



Well, and here was lunch (among other things) - BBQ'd lamb (Andrea - don't show this to Taylor).  It really was quite good.

And we were entertained by the 2 that were at the door, with 3-4 local dances.

All in all, quite a terrific lunch spot.  We thoroughly enjoyed it.  While we were leaving, we came across this little guy, so I asked if I could take his picture.  He stopped for me.  He was so cute.  And you can see that Monkey Puzzle Tree in the background beside Gerard.

And to cap it off, at dinner tonight as we were sailing, we saw lots of whale spouts, but not one made a big splash for us.  That's OK.  We knew they were there.