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Hello everyone! It has been a while since I have been able to write anything...it has been hard to get to a computer. I have so many stories to tell!!
Let´s start with the longest day of my life. Our flight from Cuzco was supposed to leave at 8am, but didn´t leave until 11am due to "mechanical problems" with our plane (comforting, huh?). We had to wait at the airport for 3 hours...but at least we got free sandwiches. I was a bit congested when we left Cuzco and the change in altitude from 11,000 feet to sea level in less than an hour was not good for my ears. By the time our plane arrived in Lima, I couldn't´t ear out of either of my ears. In Lima, we had an 8 hour, yes 8 hour, layover waiting for our plane to Santiago. It was awful, 4 lost looking white girls lugging our baggage (we have 7 bags) around the Lima airport for 8 hours. I bought some ineffective medicine at the pharmacy before we got on our 9pm flight, thinking it would make the flight better. Boy was I wrong. As fate would have it, I got to sit behind a screaming 4 year old, Rachel, whose parents did nothing to stop her. She screamed for the whole duration of the flight, which was 5 hours. She kept screaming "I want to go to Nana´s house!!" It took every ounce of strength I had to not scream back at her..."Hey! I want to go to my Nana´s house too...but you don´t see me crying!!". I hated Rachel. Being sick makes me irritable. Our flight landed in Santiago at 2:30am. Rachel also got to stand next to us in line as we went through customs. It is interesting, in Chile they have some vendetta against American, Mexican, Australian and Canadian citizens. There is a special line at the airport where all people holding those passports have to pay $100 to enter Chile. They call it a "reciprocity fee". We finally arrived at our youth hostel at 4am. It didn´t have a sign out front and a scary looking bald man answered the door...but we were in the right place. Finally, after almost 24 hours of traveling!Our youth hostel turned out to be one of my favorite things about my stay in Santaigo. We met so many friendly students from all over the world.
Our first day in Chile, we obviously slept late since we didn´t get to bed until after 4am. The neighborhood that we stayed in was so beautiful and very unique. We were one block from all these shops and restaurants...it was great! We took a gondola up to this mountaintop and got to see the whole city. Jill was so scared the whole time that the gondola would break! The gondola was in the middle of a beautiful park. People are very active in Santiago...running, walking, biking, etc.
Chilean wine is world renowned so we also did two vineyard tours while in Santiago. They were both so beautiful! They even let us eat the grapes! We learned about how wine is made and the unique history of each vineyard. After the tours, we stopped to eat lunch at a restaurant called "La Vaquita Echa"...which was great, except they served us pig brains along with customary bread and butter. I don´t know what compelled me to do it...but I ate it. It was gross. The alpaca in Peru was much much better. Live and learn, I guess.
We also spent a day walking around downtown. We saw "La Moneda" which is basically the Chilean Whitehouse. The architecture in Santiago was very European looking. It was such a clean city. Unfortunately, I erased the pictures that I had on accident...so this blog won´t have as many as usual.
Our time in Chile was great, different from Peru though. I have been battling a serious cold so I haven´t been up do doing as much as usual. We have been doing lots of "hanging out". I am feeling better though and I am going to write another blog very soon that will be much more interesting!
previous travel blog entry
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