Santiago and Home Again
- Details
- Hits: 2134
Our South American trip ended in Santiago, the proud capitol of the country. By this time, we were becoming quite saturated with the whole experience. Chile and, therefore, Santiago has had a long turbulent history. Santiago is a large sprawling city with the Andes Mountains in the near background. Unfortunately, the sky was hazy most of the time we were there so the views of the mountains were indistinct. It began in 1541 and there have been a number of regime changes, wars, and waves of immigrants. Many of these events have been commemorated with s statue or monument that are scattered around the city.
We had some walking and riding tours. One fun experience was wine tasting at a particularly accommodating winery. Very tasty stuff… mainly reds. We trudged up a stairway for a viewing of the statue of the virgin Mary. It was impressive, but it just was not as impressive or as memorable as the statue of Christ the Redeemer that we had seen just a couple weeks ago in Rio de Janeiro. It seems that every city tour includes a visit to a cathedral or other church so, of course, Santiago was no exception. Massive and ornate. Some of the beautiful, original colonial era structures are still standing and impressive. And, with Melba, we went to the Chilean Historical Museum. It was quite interesting even though all narratives were in Spanish.
On our last day, the others departed earlier than Karel and I so we had some extra time for more exploring. I guess we were a bit pooped out. All we did was some brief shopping, an afternoon tea time and relaxed by the pool before we went to the airport.
Home again
December 5 and 6
Our trip home went to Dallas, Seattle, and home. Eighteen hours of flying time and 27 hours of total transit time.