Santiago de Chile

So we traveled to Santiago, Chile by bus from Mendoza.  This 6 hour bus ride was absolutely incredible.  To get from Mendoza to Santiago you need to literally travel through the Andes Mountains.  The entire route was either in a tunnel or on a thin winding road between the mountains.  Amazing scenery.  Everything was going well, without a hitch, until we arrived at the Argentina/Chile boarder.  Everybody had to get off the bus and bring everything they brought with them.  We then had to wait in a line to go to one desk to "leave Argentina" and then get into another line to wait to "enter Chile" at another desk.  Real hi-tech.  So after our group from the bus finished all of this everyone from the bus had to line up in another room shoulder to shoulder, which made me kind of nervous.  At this point I realized that I had apples in my bag that I had brought to eat on the bus and then got really nervous.  So we had to stand there, all nervous like we had done something wrong, while they finished putting all of our luggage through metal detectors.  That's when they found my apples.  I apologized profusely and told him to just throw them out.  He then asked me what my name was, found my paperwork in the stack, and pointed to where I indicated that I did not have any livestock or produce.  This is when he became an asshole.  He turned my paper over and told me to read the back, like I was an idiot.  I pretended to read it, apologized again and told him to just throw them out.  He then turned to help someone else and ignored me.  I then asked if I could go or if there was something else I needed to do.  He then looked at me and without saying a word, saluted me (like hand to his forehead salute).  At this point I decided that I officially hate all Chileans (don't worry I changed my mind, but at this moment I was certain that Argentinians are a far superior race to Chileans).  We arrived to our hotel later that evening and decided to go out for a little walk and a night cap.  Unfortunately stupid Obama was in Santiago this same night and we couldn't walk anywhere as we were rerouted repeatedly by the police.  When we got back to the hotel Jonathan's computer wouldn't turn on. :(  Still waiting to hear from universities and with the fantasy baseball draft on the horizon, this just wasn't acceptable. 

Our first day in Santiago we woke up, had a cup of coffee and reformatted Jonathan's computer (everything is now running fine :)  We then went for a walk and headed over to this cute little cafe to eat lunch.  Before we left for Chile, the family here in Argentina told us that Chileans put avocado on everything.  I assumed that this was an exaggeration, but boy was I wrong.  Mashed up avocados with olive oil are pretty standard on all of their sandwiches.  I had eaten sandwiches with a slice of avocado, but never in this form.  But let me tell you, it was delicious!  I had this amazing turkey sandwich with avocado spread and I am a total convert.  Once we get back to the US I am totally putting avocados on everything.  We then had some ice cream (they make their own at this cafe) and took a tram up to a vistapoint to check out the city skyline.  At the top was a large status of Mary complete with all of the regular Catholic stuff -the lighting of the candles and prayers. I always enjoy that, being the voyeur that I am, I like to read people's prayers. 

After taking the tram back down we walked around the Bellavista neighborhood of Santiago, which is a young artsy area, to get a beer  We then headed back to the hotel to change and head out to do some Chilean wine tasting :)  We found this cute little french restaurant that has a large wine by the glass menu.  We split a cheese plate, had a few glasses of wine, and finished it off with a creme brulee.   But let me tell you, Chilean wine is delicious.  I hadn't really been familiar with any of their specific varietals or major vineyards.  But I'm excited to drink some more of it in the US once we get back, because it's super reasonably priced. 

Our second day in Chile we had booked a hiking tour in the Andes.  We booked a tour with AndoAndes Ecotourismo (you like that plug :) and had an absolutely amazing time.  The picked us up at the hotel, we signed our lives away, and headed off in their Range Rover.  At first, as we headed out of the city, I thought this obscenely large vehicle was all for show, but once we reached the limits of the small villages and began our hour trip on the dirt roads of the Andes foothills, I was proven wrong.  About 20 minutes in we began driving on these rocky, winding roads of the Andes I started to freak out.  But whenever I travel, I always try to ask myself if my freaking out is legitimate or is it because I'm an obnoxious American and I haven't really lived.  My fight or flight mechanisms were like going berserk.  I eventually decided that there wasn't really much I could do, held on tight, and shut my eyes. I also decided that I was lucky because Jonathan's seat wasn't connected to the truck and whenever we hit a big bump (every 10 seconds) his seat, that he was belted into, would lurch forward or up.  And so we continued to careen around corners, a foot away from cliffs of about 200ft.  Finally we arrived.  We parked aside this goat herdsman's house (we passed by all of these awesome goat herdsman that sold homemade cheeses..mmm) and hiked into this valley.  We said hello to the goat herdsman and told him we'd catch him later, as he was herding his goats into the same valley we were headed.  The view during this hike was absolutely incredible.  I saw a volcano AND a glacier.

After we finished our hike, we piled back into the truck and headed to the hot springs.  This was a nice, easy drive and I didn't fear for my life :)  The hot springs are formed by the volcanic heat beneath the earth's surface.  They have the hot water move into different constructed pools, so the pools at the top are the hottest and the pools below are the coolest, as this water has already moved through 4 pools or so.  So people generally start in the cooler pools and move themselves up towards the hotter pools.  We started in the middle and moved up one pool.  We made friends with some Chilean fishermen from Valparaiso, did the whole mud bath thing, and drank a glass of wine :). 

We had a really amazing time in the hot springs, completely relaxing.  We then headed back to the hotel, of course stopping on the way back to eat some epanadas. :)  We had a really amazing time in Santiago, and especially enjoyed our day in the Maipu Valley of the Andes :)