Valparaiso, Santiago Chile

Early this morning we docked in Valparaiso Chile, the second largest city. It was before sunrise and we have a full day excursion to Santiago, the capital city of Chile with 8.5 million people, almost half the population of the country.
On our hour and a half drive to Santiago, our local guide described the 7 regions of Chile, from north to south since the country is very long and narrow. We had already been to the southern 2 regions. The reason that the country is so narrow is that it is divided from the rest of the other South American countries by the Andes mountains. The mountains also provide a natural break in the weather so that Chile is foggy from the Pacific Ocean and it does not rain a lot. We traveled through the Casa Blanca region that grows a LOT of white wines. The grapes grow well here due to the morning fog and volcanic soil. On our drive from Valparaiso to Santiago, there were a lot of farms. Farming and wine are major exports of Chile. 90% of the produce is exported. The farms are for avocados, pumpkins, almonds, grapes, peanuts, cherries and olive oil from the olive trees.
Once in Santiago, we visited the old city square with the past old buildings that were the Royal Palace, Post Office, National Bank. The square had palm trees that are the only native palm trees in Chile. We saw the changing of the guards at the palace and visited the oldest church in the city of Santiago.
We then had a nice local Chilean lunch with cuscous, corn and beef casserole and a dulce asada for desert.
Our last stop was a local artisan shopping area with many, many shops. Unfortunately we only had 30 minutes, so we had to power shop. We were able to find a great shop with hand painted ceramic plates and bowls. With some broken spanish, english and Google Translate, we found out that the owner's 86 year old mother hand paints all the bowls, plates and signs. Of course we had to buy a bowl to bring back...
Then our drive back to the ship - the last group to get onboard for our 2 days of sailing to the next port.Read more