Santiago

After a whirlwind five days in Mendoza we were looking forward to checking into our apartment in Santiago, Chile for a detox and some rest and relaxation. We took a seven hour bus through the Andes mountains which had incredible scenery and the windiest, squiggly roads we have ever seen.

The apartment had a fully equipped kitchen so we enjoyed making our own healthy dinners for four nights. Yay veggies.

We went for a walk around the city on Easter Sunday in the lush European neighbourhood of Lastarria where we had our first hot chocolate in a long time. We explored the artisan craft shops and purchased some Vietnamese coffee from a lovely Chilean man who had visited Vietnam multiple times.

{Note on coffee: Chile doesn’t really have any good coffee for buying to make at home. All of the good Colombian coffee gets exported at a premium price elsewhere so all that’s available is instant Nescafé that is kept under lock and key at the supermarkets, very strange.}

For lunch we had a traditional Chilean meal. A tasty homemade pie with corn, beef, chicken and other vegetables. We also indulged in our first, and only, pisco sour. It tasted like a really strong homemade margarita – still too soon for that sort of carry on.

On our third day we climbed up Cerro Santa Lucia which had beautiful panoramic views of the city. We also found out Chileans love hotdogs and produce some pretty excellent ones. We had turkey hotdogs for lunch complete with mushrooms, onions, pickles and mustard.

Our fourth day consisted of a full tourist day visiting two museums. We visited the Human Rights Museum where we learned about the awful violations of human rights during the military dictatorship between 1973-1991. The second museum was the Pre Columbian Arts Museum where we learned about the ancient civilisations that inhabited the Andes thousands of years ago.

We could have easily stayed in Santiago for longer but as always we had to move on. We have just arrived in Valparaiso and I am writing this on NZ’s ANZAC day thinking of those who are commemorating back home.

The internet is good here so more posts to come soon!

Bus trip through the Andes – Crazy windy roads!