Leaving La Paz we flew to the entirely different Santiago in Chile. Santiago is a big modern city surrounded by the dramatic snow-capped Andes. Whilst there we had hoped to get some skiing in but unfortunately the snow coverage wasn’t good enough so instead we spent a few days exploring the city with Jason (Marc’s work friend from London) and his girlfriend Helen.
Santiago and the Andes; a pretty awesome contrast
Hanging out with Helen
It was great to meet up with some friends so we spent a lot of our time eating, drinking excessive amounts of the fabulous local carminere and the odd pisco sour, and exchanging travelling stories.
The fabulous fish market
Jason & Helen and our fish feast; Helen had the biggest mussels we’d ever seen
Leaving Santiago we headed to the coastal town of Valparaiso, Chile’s principal port and naval base. We stayed in the Cerro Conception area which is a really pretty part of town with brightly coloured buildings and lots of bars and restaurants.
After a number of happy hour cocktails one evening we emptied a restaurant because of our raucous debate; anybody who knows Jason will understand that this is inevitable.
Happy hour cocktails and cats; I now have the name ‘crazy cat lady’
Jason was getting a little too much
Police patrol on the beach in Vina del Mar
Working off the cocktails
At this point we changed our plans slightly and decided not to fly to Buenos Aires but to travel across into Argentina by land therefore stopping off in the famous wine province of Mendoza. We bid our goodbyes to Jason and Helen and off we went.
No comments:
Post a Comment