Hola from Chile

We arrived safely in Santiago at around 2pm on Monday - only supposedly 6 hours after we left Brisbane - but of course it was much longer than that. As it was a public holiday, the trip to the hotel was quick as there was no traffic. Hotel is nice - we have a room on the 12th floor overlooking the golf course and a nice view of the Andes mountains in the background. That evening we met with the other guests on the tour (there are 29 of us) at a cocktail reception where we tried the national Chilean drink, Pisco Sour. It was quite refreshing but I'm sure it would pack a punch. It is said that after the 2nd drink you understand Spanish and by the 3rd you speak it fluently.

Relatively early night because a big day on Tuesday. Note to self, make sure you look at the correct time. Woke up, checked the tablet and the time was 5.15am so I got up to perhaps see the sun rise over the Andes. Still dark so decided to have my shower as we were planning to get up around 6am anyway. After my shower I was surprised that the sun still hadn't risen so checked the time again and it was only 4.30am (the time on my tablet was still showing Australian time). Ah well, nevermind.

Our bus trip today was a sightseeing tour of Santiago then a trip to the port city of Valparaiso which is a world heritage listed city. The tour of Santiago was a bit of a non event as we only drove past some points of interest which were photographed from the bus but Il couldn't tell you much about them. However, the tour of Valparaiso was quite interesting. The bus dropped us at the top and we walked down the steep streets looking at the colourful houses and street murals. At the end we experienced a furnicular (street elevator) which was about 150 years old and still in use.

Some interesting points i learned about Chile in general:
Santiago receives very little rain, only about 250mm a year. We will frequently get that in one downfall.
The Atacama desert in the north of the country is the driest desert in the world.
Port cities such as Valpariso have bright, colourful houses because it is a sailor's tradition so they could pick out their particular house from sea.
Valpariso was once the capital of Chile as it was a very busy port. This changed when the Panama Canal opened in 1915 and ships no longer had to sail around the bottom of South America. The population went from 25000 before 1915 to just 5000 soon after.
Due to the dry climate, Chile has a very successful wine growing region. They are not affected by fungal diseases or insect pests because they do not thrive in dry conditions. That means pesticides and fungicides are not used.
Tomorrow we travel to Buenos Aires where we stay for 3 nights.Read more