Jake's horrible experience in the La Boca barrio of Buenos Aires accelerated our readiness to move on to a new place. Luckily we had a flight to Santiago booked for less than 48 hours later. Our wonderful welcoming to the capital city of Chile was just what we needed. It started with a flight over the Andes which shouldn't have been a surprise but when I saw the summits peaking through the clouds it was breathtaking. The view was magical: blue skies, whiter than white clouds and then these beautiful snowcapped peaks. I was happy to have a window seat and was alerted to take advantage of it when the crew stated that it was time to cross the mountain range and therefore everyone had to stay seated. That was an odd announcement that I had never heard before. The mountain range was incredibly wide and it felt like we were crossing it for twenty minutes. As that part of our flight came to an end, the crew had another unusual announcement: because we had crossed the border into Chile, due to Chilean regulations they had to sanitize the plane. Then the crew walked around spraying the overhead bins with disinfectant. Does this really accomplish anything? Weird.
View of the Andes as we flew from Argentina into Chile
Our Air B&B host had arranged for our transport from the airport to the apartment in the Provindencia barrio of Santiago. She was a petite older woman named Edith who spoke incredible English. We had a nice chat with her during the short ride to the apartment. It's always nice when the anxiety of transportation in a new place is removed. The trifecta of wonderfulness of our arrival experience was the Air B&B apartment we had booked. Its owner, Josee greeted us upon arrival which we've found isn't all that common with Air B&B. The apartment was better than the photos on its listing, had been recently renovated, and was stocked. In the fridge she had a basket of fruit for us, a loaf of bread, milk, butter and water. There was also coffee, pasta and rice, dish soap, toilet paper, laundry detergent etc. These things may seem silly to get excited about but it's wonderful when you arrive in a new place and don't have to buy things like dish soap and toilet paper! On top of that she had a subway card for us and a list of recommended restaurants in the area. Her recommended spot for empanadas did not disappoint and we went there twice in four days. Our favorite was champinon queso ricotta which was a baked empanada stuffed with mushrooms and ricotta cheese. Yum.
We enjoyed a free walking tour in Santiago which has become our go-to activity everywhere we go. This one was a little longer than usual at four hours, but it was a good way to learn about the history of Santiago as well as Chile. After the tour we found Fuente Alemana (means German Fountain in Spanish) which was a place Anthony Bourdain visited when he filmed an episode of No Reservations. Apparently over 30,000 Germans migrated to Chile in the second half of the 19th century and their influence can be seen in some aspects of the beer and culinary scene. At 2pmon a Saturday, Fuente Alemana was packed and it didn't feel like it was with tourists. Us and the locals again. We love that. We each ordered a lomito, mine "con palta y tomate y queso" (with avocado, tomato and cheese) and Jake's "completo" (chunky homemade tomato sauce, homemade mayonnaise, and sauerkraut). I've never seen so much mayonnaise on sandwiches before. The incredibly delicious sandwiches were served on fresh round rolls and were much better than I expected them to be. They were ginormous and I still can't believe that we finished them. It's impossible to pick them up and bite into them so we (and everyone else) ate them with a fork and knife. After the pork is cooked, it is sliced thinly and stored in the broth it was cooked in until serving. It wasn't salty or fatty, it was just perfect. We washed them down with "dos chopps" (two draft beers) and I'm pretty sure we didn't eat dinner that night.
The other thing we did in Santiago was plan. Plan and plan and plan and plan. We have a lot more exploring of Northern Chile to do including lakes, geysers, the wine region of Colchagua and the coastal town of Valparaiso before we take a bus into Bolivia to visit the largest salt flats in the world. In the past eleven months we've visited 21 countries and getting a visa to visit Bolivia required the most work and the most money. While visa's to many countries aren't required for stays under 90 days (New Zealand, Italy, etc.) others require a visa but it can be obtained online or at the airport upon arrival (Turkey, Laos etc.). For our Bolivia visas, first we had to apply online and then we had to visit a Bolivian consulate in person. Luckily I realized this the week before we were going to be in a major city with a Bolivian consulate. In addition to proof of our already booked Bolivian accommodations and the obvious valid passports, we also had to demonstrate proof of our "economic solvency" and yellow fever vaccinations. We had the vaccinations before we left the U.S. and we carry around little yellow booklets that have the required evidence. We were able to demonstrate proof of our economic solvency by providing a credit card statement which showed we had a low balance and high limit. Luck would have it that we were walking distance from the Bolivian consulate in Santiago and when we showed up we were second in line. The Bolivian man we met with spoke perfect English was easy to work with. He said that he was impressed by how prepared we were with the necessary documentation. We also had the cash to pay for the visas but they don't handle money at the consulate. We had to go get American dollars at money exchange counter and then go to a bank and deposit $320 USD into the Bolivian government's account. We went to the consulate on a Friday morning and he wanted us to come back Monday afternoon to pick up our visas. When we shared that our plan was to leave Santiago on Mondaymorning, he told us we could come back that same day and pick the visas up. Bolivia better be great!
Back to the planning I mentioned...we signed up for another week of Spanish classes in Sucre, Bolivia and booked two separate three day tours into the Amazon. We are very excited about those activities but there is more major news to share. We've unexpectedly booked a flight to Cusco, Peru from which we hope to take a day trip to see Machu Picchu. Jake has been to Cusco and Machu Picchu before so it was not part of our original plan, but the cheapest flight we could get to the Galapagos Islands was through Cusco so why not spend a few days there? Machu Picchu is going to be incredible but Galapagos is going to be spectacular. As we mentioned in a previous post, we didn't think we could pull it off budget wise, but we are making it happen and I am so excited! Galapagos is made up of 18 main islands approximately 600 miles off the coast of mainland Ecuador. The convergence of three major oceanic currents brings an incredible mix of marine life to Galapagos and we are hoping to experience that both on land and in the sea. There are species there that are not found anywhere else in the world. In 1835 Charles Darwin spent five weeks in the Galapagos islands and those observations helped him to build his theory of natural selection. It is very unlike us to book flights but not make other plans (book tours, dive trips etc.) However, with Galapagos, booking ahead of time means paying full price and full price is out of the budget. We were inspired to make this very un-us decision of booking only flights because we found several blog posts from other travelers who had success getting deals on last minute dive/boat trips once they arrived. We are going to stay for twelve nights and are hoping to find a last minute deal. If not, we will enjoy the free sights on the islands and do a few day dive trips. We just couldn't leave this part of the world without going. There are so many incredible birds and sea creatures waiting to see us. The combination of my diving bug and Jake's photography bug is calling us there.
Chile is very beautiful and we know that we’ll be back someday to explore the Southern region of Patagonia. It’s too cold there now for hiking and fishing so it’s a future trip we look forward to. Hopefully our Spanish will be a bit better for that trip!
~ Jesslyn