Zapallar & Environs and on to Santiago

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Trip Start Jan 06, 2008 Previous
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  Santiago, Chile
Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Yesterday we drove south to Vina del Mar and Valparaiso. These are respectively, the main seaside resort for Santiagans and the main port of Chile. Vina is a sprawling city of high rise condos standing shoulder to shoulder along the coast. It was packed with people jogging, bike riding, beach walking, and, later in the day when the sea fog had cleared, sunbathing on the beach. The traffic was chaotic and strangely slow. Chileans drive very tentatively and slowly, not at all what you would expect. The impression overall was of a mix of the French Riviera and an English seaside resort.
We carried on to Valparaiso but not before the most exciting event of the day! We saw sea lions! We had stopped to take a look at a rocky outcrop against which the waves were crashing impressively. I heard a honking sound and looking more closely we could see a colony of sea lions just off the beach in Vina del Mar. Out came the cameras and we managed to get some good pictures. I even got some video of two of the huge males fighting with each other.
Valparaiso is somewhat like Miss Haversham in Great Expectations. Her glory days were before the Panama Canal was opened. It was the main stopping point for ships bound for San Francisco after they had rounded Cape Horn in the gold rush days. It is evident from the buildings that great wealth was amassed but sadly that was a long time ago and the city is in need of a new suitor to recapture some of its old glory. It is built like San Francisco on steep hills and its solution was to build funiculars (called ascensores) which take you up the hills to the residential areas. We took one which was built in 1883 and looked it but it was still working.
Today we drove back to Santiago in the company of two young (23) Australian girls who were completing a 7 week tour of South America. They were pleasant and cheerful companions for the day. We are now back at the Hotel Orly where we stayed when we first arrived. Santiago is a big, busy, thriving city of 4.5 million people with the traffic to go with it. There is a splendid modern subway system here which runs on rubber wheels al la Montreal. We have used it several times. It is easy to use and cheap (85 cents). This is easily the hottest place we have been in so far with daytime temperatures reaching 95 degrees but the humidity is low.
Tomorrow we have to be up early (4:30) to go to the airport to fly to Calama in the Atacama desert. We are actually going to San Pedro de Atacama and we will be picked up and driven there. More later....

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Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Brown Pelicans	Perfect reflections	More sea lions	Artist and helper
Palm unique to Chile	Sign for Ascensor Valparaiso	Hotel Isla Seca Zapallar	Bouganvillea
Hotel Isla Seca with view of our room	Bike police Vina del Mar	Overexuberance in Zapallar	View from La Rambla Zapallar
Valparaiso wired	Santiago from Cerro san Cristobal	Sea Lions Vina del Mar	Waves crashing on shore Vina
Crowded beach Zapallar	Same beach earlier in day

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