Santiago, Chile
We spent a few days in Santiago, a city we weren’t that impressed by. There’s nice big tree lined streets, lots of shaded plazas, too much shopping, etc, but nothing that really made it feel unique or stand out. It does have a subway! It’s efficient and clean and costs about 80 cents for a ticket. It was nice to ride it as there are a few miradors in town and we hiked to the tops of them for a view of…well, shadows of mountains. Santiago has a serious smog problem. Perhaps it’s because everyone seems to own a car in this country or everyone’s smoking all the time, I dunno.
We’re still in shock of how expensive everything is. We tried to do laundry and were given a price of $12! We looked around and got our clothes washed for $6, but really, it was less than one normal load of laundry…anyways, we tried Mote con Huesillos. It’s a sugar water drink that’s half filled with cooked wheat and a dried, rehydrated whole peach. It’s served cold and is very refreshing since it was so muggy and hot. I also tried a local drink called a borgoña (white wine and chirimoya juice). It tasted like a sweet sangría.
We visited the Concha y Toro winery, which was okay. We were warned that visiting vineyards in Chile is not the same as in the US or France…so we didn’t have high hopes. We toured the grounds a bit (we got to eat a cab sauv grape off the vine…and it was sweet and delicious!), saw the cellars and tried their Trio Cab Blanc, Diablo Carmenere and the Diablo Cabernet Sauvignon. I wasn’t in love with any of them to buy, and Matt liked the white the best. It cost about $13 each to do the tour with the 3 little tastings, but we figured we should do a wine tour in Chile while we’re here and it was still fun, though not a very personal experience or loads of free wine.
We spent a night at Casa Roja, which was pretty cool. It’s an old, big mansion with a shared kitchen, swimming pool, ping pong and a cricket batting cage. It’s the perfect place for traveller’s in the 20-30 range and the people that work there are HELPFUL, which we are finding is a rarity.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Kimmy– I finally made it to your site. I’m in awe that you two are doing this. It’s fantastic. I want to read about your volunteer time but may not be able to read through all of the blog. can you point me to the right month?
I do have your scale…safe and sound. Tell me where to send it to and when. Gail