This was another beautiful day in Santiago and our last for a month as we will be back for a day on Feb 23rd before we fly to Buenos Aires. We have found it to be a city of friendly, beautiful people and it is evident everywhere just how clean, well kept and maintained for the enjoyment of its citizens it is. Parks are everywhere with play areas for children and benches line all of the streets for people to just sit and watch the people go by. I would have to say that the only negative we have experienced is the air quality which is probably comparable to a reasonably bad day in Toronto in the summer. Today when we went up 3000M into the Andes and then I rode the chair lift for another half hour up so I'm not sure where that got me but the air was pristine and the breezes carried what seemed to be a truly puified air. At least that was while I was on the chair lift. The climb from the chair UP to where the restaurant and main buildings were was a killer for me. It's not that it was all that far but the lack of oxygen and the fact that there had been no time to acclimatize to it was really quite tricky. It involved many stops and a slow pace in order to make it back to meet Maggie and our bus but I was somewhat gratified to see that people much younger than myself were having to go at the same pace and style. It was, however, worth the trip for sure. The Andes, at least this part of the range, was very volcanic in appearance as I think this picture will show. There are 2000 volcanoes in Chile, 50 of which are active and 3 of them are in the vicinity that we were today. Earthquakes are quite active here, as well although the last major one (which severely damaged Santiago) was in 1976. The one that completely destroyed Valparaiso and Vina del Mar where we go tomorrow was in 1906. Apparently tremors are felt here all the time but as yet, we don't think we have experienced anything. Tomorrow is another day:-). The tour of Santa Carolina winery was fine but with all of the winery tours in all of the places in the world that we've done, the best in my view, is right in Prince Edward County! The buildings were cool, though, dating back to 1875 and had been lovingly restored.
My internet connection here seems to be spotty and this blog was published with the last half missing so I am sorry if anyone was confused. I was :-) Now, we have just returned from another wonderful dinner at Tierra Noble, a very classic Chilean restaurant where we decided to have beef as a change from the fish. A steak and wonderful spinach salad that they called "Popeye" and pronounced papaya, for obvious reasons, brought yet again another smile of satisfaction at the end of a great day. Tomorrow morning we have a car picking us up for the two hour drive to Vina del Mar which in itself is reputed to be a beautifully scenic journey. Will check in from there. Hugs to all..........sf.........xoxoxoxo
This was another beautiful day in Santiago and our last for a month as we will be back for a day on Feb 23rd before we fly to Buenos Aires. We have found it to be a city of friendly, beautiful people and it is evident everywhere just how clean, well kept and maintained for the enjoyment of its citizens it is. Parks are everywhere with play areas for children and benches line all of the streets for people to just sit and watch the people go by. I would have to say that the only negative we have experienced is the air quality which is probably comparable to a reasonably bad day in Toronto in the summer. Today when we went up 3000M into the Andes and then I rode the chair lift for another half hour up so I'm not sure where that got me but the air was pristine and the breezes carried what seemed to be a truly puified air. At least that was while I was on the chair lift. The climb from the chair UP to where the restaurant and main buildings were was a killer for me. It's not that it was all that far but the lack of oxygen and the fact that there had been no time to acclimatize to it was really quite tricky. It involved many stops and a slow pace in order to make it back to meet Maggie and our bus but I was somewhat gratified to see that people much younger than myself were having to go at the same pace and style. It was, however, worth the trip for sure. The Andes, at least this part of the range, was very volcanic in appearance as I think this picture will show. There are 2000 volcanoes in Chile, 50 of which are active and 3 of them are in the vicinity that we were today. Earthquakes are quite active here, as well although the last major one (which severely damaged Santiago) was in 1976. The one that completely destroyed Valparaiso and Vina del Mar where we go tomorrow was in 1906. Apparently tremors are felt here all the time but as yet, we don't think we have experienced anything. Tomorrow is another day:-). The tour of Santa Carolina winery was fine but with all of the winery tours in all of the places in the world that we've done, the best in my view, is right in Prince Edward County! The buildings were cool, though, dating back to 1875 and had been lovingly restored.
My internet connection here seems to be spotty and this blog was published with the last half missing so I am sorry if anyone was confused. I was :-) Now, we have just returned from another wonderful dinner at Tierra Noble, a very classic Chilean restaurant where we decided to have beef as a change from the fish. A steak and wonderful spinach salad that they called "Popeye" and pronounced papaya, for obvious reasons, brought yet again another smile of satisfaction at the end of a great day. Tomorrow morning we have a car picking us up for the two hour drive to Vina del Mar which in itself is reputed to be a beautifully scenic journey. Will check in from there. Hugs to all..........sf.........xoxoxoxo
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