So it’s been a long day – and night and day. We’re currently ensconced in the 21st floor lounge at the Sheraton in Santiago with a wonderful view of the city and mountains after two flights yesterday (one redeye), customs madness at the airport today, and a city tour with lunch. Oh, by the way, it’s summer.
Logistically what we followed is we booked a private transfer through Cristian at Vamonos Tours. He recommended we expand it to a city tour and I agreed as we did an upgrade to First / Business Class on American Airlines meaning the flight was actually restful and I wasn’t too certain the Sheraton would check us in early (spoiler alert – my mother flew in on a different flight today as well and they wouldn’t check her in without an extra fee).
So I’ll say this. What enabled us to have the energy to do this touring was this – American’s Business Class to South America was great. They offered us better service than I recall from Virgin Atlantic or British Airways’ business class although BA at least was a bit more comfortable (caveat – it wasn’t first class, and this was 2002 when I had the privilege to be upgraded there). Although the lay flat bed once flat felt like a coffin where your feet were constrained, the food was great and the service was very good. They even made us hot fudge sundaes. The domestic product flying to Miami worked well for us as well although obviously there is no lay flat bed (who needs it on a flight less than three hours?) but they did call us out by name as we boarded and as they provided us service.
Today we stayed fit by walking and climbing St. Lucia hill with Hidalgo castle on it. We managed to get more than four miles in (just one mile in the airport alone) and as of 6:57pm 9,586 steps. After all of that craziness, we checked into the hotel (there’s a Walmart convention here in addition to a thousand Holland America cruisers), went up to our room, showered and siestaed. This didn’t really do much for my six hour sleep debt according to Oura, but it let me decompress enough to write this all up.
We’re truly inspired by the setting of the beautiful city of Santiago, in a valley surrounded by mountains, near the coast as if it were California. Although it is rough around the edges, the people we encountered on the street and in the market today were incredible. There is a lot of flair in the city.
Our guide was happy we were lucky enough to show up when there was activity in the streets. He also laughed at us because he dropped us at the base of St. Lucia and told us to wait because he had instructions; we mis-heard him and walked up the mountain instead.
One of the best parts of the day was seafood lunch at El Galeón at the market. It was such a lively scene there – on a random Wednesday afternoon in the summer. I’ve added photos and videos around the city – dancing in the streets, the Mercado itself, and of course a Pisco Sour.
In Retrospect 