Part 1 – Santiago and Valparaiso
January 2017 found Lynn and I traveling out and about in portions of Chile and Argentina with our friends Mary and Joe Studlick. Joe spent a considerable amount of time going back and forth with Jeff at Off the Beaten Path (OBP) to plan a 20+ day trip to visit the Atacama Desert and Patagonia in Chile and the Salta area in Argentina. And OBP did a great job with airport to hotel transfers, guides, restaurant reservations, wine tours, and trips back and forth across the Chile/Argentine border. We were looking for good food, fine wines, and lots of incredible scenery. With three of us being geologists we would be looking at lots of rocks too.
Our Santiago guide picked us up at the airport early Sunday, Jan. 15th after our overnight flight from Houston and checked us in to the hotel before we set out on our first tour. And a whirlwind it was – here’s a museum, here’s a gov’t building, here’s a museum, let’s run into this cathedral for 5 minutes, etc. At least the weather was nice.
Monday found us off to the coastal city of Valparaiso which was declared a World Heritage site in 2003. On the way we stopped at Kingston Family Vineyards for a tour and lunch. Joe and I both bought a case of wine and had it shipped home.
Valparaiso is a beautiful city built on the hillsides overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Once again it was rush, rush, rush around town. We did get to ride one of the few remaining funiculars in the city and we also spent an hour or so with a local artist. Also, there are dozens of murals painted on the side of buildings and fences.
Monday evening we were off to Boragó for dinner. Now our friend Joe says it was one of the ten best meals ever for them but with 6 courses plus 10 small items it was a little excessive for Lynn and I. Not to say it wasn’t delicious but I was stuffed after the first appetizer. The service was very good and the wine was very inexpensive as most Chilean wines are. Highly recommended but you’ll need to pace yourself.
This is the end of part 1. I’m not adding a gallery of photos here mainly because I’m not happy with most of them and there’s good stuff to come.
Come back for part 2 as we head north to the Atacama Desert.