Two Backpacks One Couple

We arrived at night and after some technical issues with our key pad for our room we got all checked in. We had two full days of exploring in our last stop in Chile, and last international stop! I think I speak for both of us when I say we were ready to be wrapping up. The hotel breakfast was awesome with a self serve small buffet as well as made to order eggs. Nick and I both helped ourselves to the cookie plate a few times. We had been go go go lately so we decided to have a relatively relaxed first day in the city. After catching up on some laundry and a blog we ventured out to find some lunch. Many places Nick had researched were closed, but we did find a burger spot called Holy Moly. The name perfectly describes what you say after your first bite, holy moly!

We wandered through some of the green spaces along the river again like we did the night before to get to our hotel. There were places where the water was pretty low and brown. It was almost too hot when we were there so the wandering pace was slow. For dinner Nick wanted to try a completo, a street food that had been recommended to us many times. We got some at Elkika Ilmenau. It turns out that completos are hot dogs covered in guacamole, cheese, mayonnaise, and other toppings. They were much better after I scraped off 50% of the toppings. They were otherwise a bit wetter than I usually like my hot dogs. To end our day we walked to the Sky Costanera, a skyscraper with 360 views of the city and the Andes Mountains. We did that for sunset which was hazy, orange, and beautiful before heading back to our hotel.

The next morning’s breakfast was not as successful as the toaster was too powerful. It didn’t matter what setting I set it to it always burnt the bread. There was also no more cookie plate. But we survived. First on our list was visiting Cerro Santa Lucia, a hillside park with nice structures and views. It was small, but free, which is nice. At first I was underwhelmed because we entered on the back side which seemed like a simple park where workers were clearing weeds and watering. It was muddy, messy, and a little sad. I told Nick I was ready to go to our next stop, which he thought was hilarious. I’m always making a first impression too fast. When we turned the corner we saw what most people would probably go to first, the real entrance. There were huge trees, nice walkways, a fountain, terraces, statues, and more. It was beautiful. We followed the stairs up to the castle-like area for a view of the city. It didn’t take long to wander the entire park, but I’m glad we kept going passed the ugly renovations area.

For lunch we walked to Santiago Central Market. There were two layers to the market. The central area seemed to be more directed at tourists while the outer stalls seemed more for locals. It’s hard to know for sure. But Nick was pretty set on having us eat in the outer layer rather than the inner one. There were stalls with fresh fish and stalls serving food. We picked one and got ceviche, a pisco sour, king crab pie, and cheesy scallops. The king crab pie was my favorite; it was so cheesy and full of huge crab pieces. The scallops were very overcooked, which was too bad. Nick liked the ceviche but I didn’t. It’s hard since we’ve had so much delicious ceviche in South America, the included dish at the local seafood market wasn’t quite the same.

The rest of our afternoon was spent getting in our steps in; what an understatement. I thought Nick was trying to break our record for most steps in one of the hottest temperatures we’ve had recently. We checked out Plaza De Armas, a church that seemed like it had been abandoned for quite some time, parks, and the Museum of Memory & Human Rights. The museum was interesting as I knew incredibly little about the country’s political history. I would say how it was organized, as well as most of the signs only being in Spanish, did make it hard to follow the chronological timeline of events. It was, however, super great to be out of the heat and inside an air conditioned building. Nick and I both thought the memorial inside dedicated to all those who died was very well done.

There was lots of street art in the city, which we enjoyed too. I was spoiled and got to go back to Holy Moly for dinner on the condition that I stop complaining about the heat. Easiest deal of my life. We followed that up with some ice cream then headed back to the hotel to grab our bags.

After our two full days of exploring Santiago it was time for our last international flight, back to the USA. It felt surreal that our world trip was so close to being over. We would have another 3 weeks traveling around the USA visiting friends and family before finally being officially done, but finishing off the international portion of our 15 month trip felt like a huge milestone, too. Our flight departed at 10:55pm and was direct 10.5 hours to NYC landing at 7:30am local time. As usual, I watched a few movies and thoroughly enjoyed my inflight meal of pasta with tomatoes. I could not believe how fast our trip flew by, what an experience.