This is the 1st time for me to step foot in South America, not to mention travelling with my BF, I’m so excited! I’m going to wonder around the Capital of Chile, Santiago, and also have a day trip to major seaport of Chile, Valparaiso!
This was also the 1st time for me to take BRITISH AIRLINE, so I couldn’t help taking shot of the plane & the flight meal, which looked typical typical?
I was so nervous, as I didn’t know any Spanish at all! Thank to my friend to pick me up from the Airport. Also, she found us a lovely guesthouse in town. The host was a young man who loves cat, so there were always 2 cats wandering in the house.
As soon as we walked on the street, I already realized the streets of Santiago were full of amazingly colorful & creative wall paintings. There were all so beautiful, looked like drawn by professional hands! Yet, there were on walls everywhere! I had never seen that before. The walls in Japan are always so clean. Even if somebody draws on it, there is no way it would be so artistic like these!!
Lucky for us, the market was in walking distance from our guesthouse, we walked to the market to have some really fresh seafood lunch, and Chilean wines from lunch!
Since we were at the heart of Santiago, we simply walked around the town, all these beautiful buildings, parks, and museums till evening…
The 1st Spanish vocab that I had learnt other than “hola!” (hello) was probably “empanada” (traditional Chilean meat pies). You can find them everywhere, they can be street foods, as well as breakfast or a quick lunch. I love them! This is just a typical chain store, but many of them are actually handmade and deep-fried after you order, hot & fresh! The most popular one is “tuna & cheese”, of course ground beef and others are available too. (In Japan, most of the time you can only find “apple pie”, which is of course sweet. I prefer meat pies much more!
There was a fire station near our guesthouse. The fire station’s shutter was actually transparant, made it look like a Showroom! And there was an ancient fire vehicle in there! Wow!! Some firemen invited us to look inside, but we were too shy…
We went to a gorgeous restaurant for dinner! Again, seafood BBQ, even with fire!! This restaurant had many many huge glass jars for alcohol, all different colors, with different ingredients & favors. We could only try a few, so they were so fruity & tasty!! I think Chile is a heaven of foods!
Next morning, our host gave us a really rich breakfast. It was actually nothing special, but everything put together looked so good! I love the sitting room! Also, the cakes (bought from shop, of course) were somehow tasted like yogurt & fruits, not too sweet. I like the cakes very much!
The next day we walked up the hill to a park, that can oversee the whole town. It was a really sunny warm day, totally did not feel like winter (in South America). There were many tropical plants, like Aloes and Cactis on the way, except they were they were so tall & big, unlike anything that I usually see in Japan. Even the walls look different…
On top of the hill we saw several churches, and many colorful, big and small Crosses standing along the stairs. Each Cross was designed and colored differently, very pretty.
At night, we had supper in some local pub. They served some really sweet soft drink. Also, wherever we go, the restaurants often served large plate of bread (which is impossible to finish) and a lot of potatoes on the side. The meat/steak was already big amount, but I must admit, their meat was so good!!
We walked about the town at night, it’s quiet but safe, and the night view was amazing.
The other day, we took a bus to the famous seaport, Valparaiso. It was just a short ride, maybe an hour? We came to a different town. Valparaiso was even more pretty. We took a cable car to high place, there we can see the complete port.
The houses were so colorful, looked like rainbow. I also enjoy the beautiful buildings & creative wall paintings. Again, we had empanadas as lunch! (English is really uncommon here, I have to learn some basic Spanish…)
The last supper in Santiago, we went to a steakhouse. Steak and Chilean wines, never disappoint us.
The Andes and the coastline of Chile looked so amazing…