Valparaiso, Santiago and home

We docked in Valparaiso and disembarked from the ship.  After 16 days where some else took care of our every need, it felt like we were leaving a cocoon!  Going back the real world in a foreign country was a bit scary, but we have done this many times before and the language was Spanish, not Chinese!!  I think we were just getting a little spoiled.  At the dock we got a cab to our hotel--the Fauna--a boutique hotel on the hillside of Valparaiso.

Valparaiso is built on hills like San Francisco and bares a strong resemblance to SF.  The city is a world heritage site with lots of unique old buildings and charm.  We toured the area around our hotel by ourselves and had dinner outside over looking the harbor with a full moon.

On Thursday we took a tour with a guide who was a young English teacher at a junior college who had been an exchange student in college in Pennsylvania.  We also went to Vina Del Mar which is a suburb of Valparaiso.  It looks a lot like La Jolla, Ca.  Very upscale!

Friday we hired a taxi/tour guide to take us to Santiago.  On the way we stopped at Chilean winery and toured Santiago.  Santiago is about 75 miles inland from the coast and we finally found summer weather--90 degrees.  Touring in this heat lessened our enthusiasm for Santiago.  The city sits at the base of the Andes, but the heat only made the ever present smog worse and the mountains were hard to see. 

We boarded a 10 pm 9 hour flight to Atlanta and then on home.

We learned a lot about South America.  I thought that all South Americans were direct descendants of the Conquistadors, but many of them trace their heritage to a variety European countries.  Our tour guide in Valparaiso said that his grandfather left Spain during the Spanish Civil War in the 30s and his other grandfather came from Italy.  Just like North America, South America is huge and the geography and people vary because of this.  We recommend if you get the chance to visit and see for yourself!