Travelogue: Santiago, Chile (Dec 2015)

The Chile series will take me several posts to complete, so bear with me!

In a nutshell, we flew to Santiago, spent a day in the city, then flew to Punta Arenas. From there, we took a bus to Puerto Natales, where we went on to hike the W Trek in the beautiful Chilean Patagonia. Afterwards, we also got to spend some time in Valparaiso, known for their street art and murals.

First, from JFK to Santiago.

The mountains!

A taxi ride from the airport to downtown cost about $20,000 CP ($28 USD in Dec 2015). We took a ride from a rogue car (I don’t recommend it if you are traveling alone) and got it down to $15,000.

I’m not gonna lie, the first thing we did was go to a Starbucks for their wifi and frapp… Dark Cherry Mocha Frappuccino, to be specific.

The good thing about downtown Santiago is that almost everywhere we went, there was free wifi at cafes and restaurants — you just gotta ask nicely for the passwords!

There were many street carts selling this, “mote con huesillos”, a traditional Chilean summer-time non-alcoholic drink made from wheat and peaches.

By the way, $1USD was equal to about 700 Chilean Peso at the time of this trip (December 2015).

Mercado Central, fish market, seafood galore

We here for the empanadas.

Cheese empanada. Certainly different than the ones we have in the States.

We walked around and found some way to go up…

You can see the Andes in the distance.

There are sooo many good restaurants and cafes in the downtown area.

And ice cream… at Emporio la Rosa 

Pisco sour!

This was one of the best fish I’ve ever eaten in my life.

Another hipster cafe with free wifi.

I looove the art all around downtown Santiago. Bellavista is a hip neighborhood with street art and bars and restaurants.

We went to a wine bar/restaurant called Bocanaríz.

https://flic.kr/p/BZUoTR

That’s the flight I chose. Gotta have the Carménère!

Loved my tasting flight and seafood!!!!!!! Prices were quite affordable, too.

Patagonia is awaiting… Coming up on the next post!

(All photos were taken with the Samsung Galaxy S5)