WRAP IT UP

Earlier this week, one of my neighbors mentioned that according to my blog, I am still in Chile and not home and across the street!  I am honored that she actually reads my blog and noticed that I haven’t finished writing about our trip!  Then yesterday, I got a message from an old dear friend wondering if I was okay since I hadn’t posted in awhile.  Wow!  Again I am honored, but that doesn’t get the job done, does it?  It seems that when I am in the middle of a trip, writing about it is easy for me because I can focus on what’s going on.  Then I travel back home and “real” life takes over, ie… unpacking, Thanksgiving and now Christmas on the horizon…..  So, today is the day that I “WRAP IT UP”!

We arrived back to the states five weeks ago and Mark and I both agree that it was another wonderful trip - Canada, Eastern United States, Mexico, Panama Canal, Western South America and finishing up in Santiago, Chile.  Our ship’s final port on this trip was in Valparaiso, Chile.

The port in Valparaiso was beautiful!

Here are views of  downtown Valparaiso as we passed through on the way to Santiago.

We disembarked the ship and took a long coach ride to Santiago.  We had heard many wonderful things about Santiago and were excited to explore it.  However, it did not go well as we entered the city.  Our coach driver decided to take a detour and not take us through the downtown area, the heart of the city, because there were protests going on and he felt it would be too congested and chaotic.  At the time, we were okay with this decision because it had been a long drive and we were anxious to get checked into our hotel and get some lunch.  What we didn’t realize was that our afternoon tour of Santiago had also been cancelled because all the commotion going on downtown.  We were really disappointed, but decided to make the best of it.  Our hotel was located in a very nice area of town with plenty of things to do.  Some of the people in our group elected to go downtown on their own, walk around the famous Central Market and enjoy dinner while there.  We elected to stay where we were and enjoy the area near our hotel.  We walked around for awhile and enjoyed a late lunch/early dinner at a cute restaurant nearby.  The food was really good and we had a nice time. We sat outside and enjoyed the music and did some people watching!  Later that evening, we had a late night snack in the hotel lounge where they had fabulous music!  It was a nice day after all!

Our views of Santiago as we entered the city.  McDonald’s and Papa Johns!

Yummy dinner!

The next morning we woke early because we had an all day tour (11 hours) scheduled to drive up and admire the Andes Mountains.  They were incredible!  We drove through small towns with homes scattered across the rugged countryside.  The road was narrow and became very steep as we made our way to the top.  A river wound along the road beside us and fed into a hydroelectric damn.  This was glacial water falling down from the High Andes.  Some of the waterfalls were incredible as were the train tracks carved into the mountains.  As we got closer to the top of the Andes, the steep road and hairpin turns had me on the edge of my seat!

Our tour guide and views of homes along our route.

A local market and more homes.

Train tracks along the side of the road that eventually made their way up the mountains.

Glacial water flowed down the mountains into the rivers which flowed roadside.

Here’s some photos of the tracks carved into the mountains with the river below.  The views were stunning!

Pipelines carried the water to the hydroelectric plant to be used by the community as their water source.  Also, Mark was able to capture a photo of one of the many condors that were flying around.

LOTS of trucks and traffic on this two lane highway made the trip slow-going!

The hair-pin curves were steep and plentiful!  Yikes!

We arrived at the top of the Andes Mountains and enjoyed a fabulous three course lunch at the iconic Portillo Ski Lodge. I found it interesting that the Lodge/Ski Resort is currently owned by the Purcell Family, Americans originally from New York City.  The resort had been owned and operated by the Chilean government but as it ran into disrepair, it was purchased and rebranded by the Purcells.  The resort sits next to the Lake of the Incas and is now a popular destination year round!  It has been visited by many famous people including the Kennedy family.

The lodge was warm and inviting with beautiful views of the Lake. Dessert was yummy!

The Lake of the Incas is famous for its stunning and unusual turquoise colored water.  It was a very overcast day, so we weren’t able to see the turquoise water.  It was still beautiful though.

The Portillo Ski Resort is just a couple miles from the Argentina border so our driver took us there so we can at least say that we’ve seen Argentina!  We weren’t able to cross the border, however.  The Welcome to Chile sign is the first thing one would see if entering from Argentina.

After our lunch, we returned to Santiago and enjoyed views of the city from the highway.  This time our coach driver did drive through the city, so we got to see some of it after all.  We strolled back to the same area where we had dinner the night before, but to a different restaurant.  We had a light dinner and called it an early night because we had to leave the hotel early in the morning for an early flight home.  

Beautiful countryside views on our way back to Santiago.  There were lots of fields of grapevines.

We finally got to see downtown Santiago from the highway!

It was an uneventful flight home.  I finished a book (Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell.  It was a Reese Book Club pick and I disliked it) and Mark watched three movies.  It was a LONG day!  We arrived in Savannah after midnight and arrived home at 1:00 am.  Our doggies had been well cared for and were happy to see us!

We’ve been home now for 5 weeks.  Haven’t seen any of our kids yet, but that will start happening this coming weekend!  We enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner out, have decorated for Christmas and purchased most of our gifts. Now the next thing to do is wrap the gifts!

So, there we go - this story about our wonderful 5 week trip has  been “WRAPPED UP” and now it’s time to get these Christmas gifts “WRAPPED UP”!