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Published: February 14th 2017
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Buenos Dias from Santiago.
We had a good long sleep last night and are much more rested today - hopefully adjusted to the new time zone here. We got up and went down to the complimentary breakfast buffet by the pool. It is a very nice open-air area and they had a fairly comprehensive set of choices. They had English-style bacon (somewhat undercooked) instead of American (crispy) bacon, but most everything else was good. And there were no pesos needed this morning.
For anyone who took the time to figure out how much our meals were in “real money” you see that the hotel food is pretty pricey. The monopoly-style Chilean cash creates some mental confusion trying to think how much something is actually costing. But we have to say that yesterday’s food was quite good with very substantial quantities, but probably not what we want every day.
Our plan this morning was to go over to the cable car ride which takes people up to the top of San Cristobal “mountain” and view the surrounding areas. We were told that the base of the ride is actually within walking distance from
Tree in a sidewalk
Walk around it - not especially unusual here our hotel, so David walked over there first to verify that estimate. However it turns out that the ride is closed on Monday so that scuttled our plan anyway. Afterwards he walked across one of the river bridges and explored a nearby shopping area. Everything in this area had been completely closed yesterday (Sunday) but was very busy today. There were lots of stores and restaurants. He was able to get some sandwiches and drinks from a store and brought them back to the hotel for when we got hungry for a lunch.
Meanwhile Janet had downloaded a new book for her Kindle Reader (finished the 1
st book last night) and got out one of her needlework projects that had been planned for the ship. This gave her a head start on it for when she meets with the Knitters and Natters later during the cruise. Unfortunately a portion needs to be redone, but better to catch that now before she had progress any further. Janet did observe that “doing nothing” was not as easy as she had expected, so you see that we are both eager to have the excursions begin.
We should
report that around the airport yesterday the land seemed pretty arid with lots of bare dirt and rock. The trees that were growing beside the road were fairly small and scrawny. Here in town they must do a lot of watering because it is nice and green. There are quite a few public parks around us (especially along the river) and the buildings appear well maintained and attractive. The roads and sidewalks are in good condition – it appears to be a pretty prosperous city. The river which passes through the middle of town flows rapidly downstream and appears to be filled with a lot of sediment. The water is quite brown and must be washing a lot of minerals out of the mountains that surround this valley. Anyway, it seems to be a very nice place to come visit- especially if you can speak Spanish.
When David returned from his walk, the hotel lobby was packed with new people registering in the hotel. Most of them had the little sticker on their shirts which were attached to our clothes by the Princess staff at the airport yesterday. We assume that many of these people flew in
Outdoor Pavilian
where breakfast buffet was served on the flight that we did yesterday, or similar flights from other locations in preparation for the cruise. There are scheduled to be 4 bus loads of people on the Princess Transfer from this hotel to the port on Wednesday. So we may get to meet a few more fellow travelers in the next day or two.
After lunch we went down to the hotel pool. It was very warm again today (high of about 90 degrees and no clouds anywhere) but the water temperature was very chilly. David was only able to swim for about 10-15 minutes before he had to get out to warm up. We noticed that most people who tried the pool did not stay even that long. Meanwhile Janet was able to snag a comfortable chair under a sun umbrella and read some of her 2
nd book. She got a couple of cups of hot tea and had a restful time.
Although we’ve noticed that St Louis is expecting some really nice February temperatures in the near future, their high today is still going to be 10 degrees lower than our low. In about a week we will be
much further south and expect that we may not have as warm weather as they are having back at home. So today is our turn to brag.
Back in the room after swimming, we were glad to see the maid had straightened the room. Janet was able to take a little nap while David played with the laptop and his camera to try to have some better pictures in the blog tonight. Then he went back to reading his book and eventually dozed off for a short nap too.
About 6:00 we left the hotel and hiked over to the shopping area. We found an interesting little sidewalk café. Janet utilized her high school Spanish and ordered Chicken & Mushroom Quiche with a Salad and a glass of iced tea. David’s French was useless, but something looked like it said Lasagna, so he ordered that with a glass of Limonada. Actually we both got what we were hoping for, and it was pretty good. Then we slowly made our way back to the hotel to settle in for the evening. Actually Janet wants to google her iced tea drink because both of our drinks came with frothy foam on top of the glasses. But they tasted good.
We have found that many people do not speak English here. We have been used to running into locals who could speak to us while we were Europe, but there are not too many here. Even in the hotel there is a goodly percentage of the staff (desk staff, waiters, etc) who do not speak English, or maybe just a few words – enough to recognize that they have to find their English speaking peer and find out what we wanted. There seems to be a variety of tourist activities around town, but maybe they are catering primarily to people from elsewhere in Chile or from other South America countries. We are enjoying ourselves anyway.
Buenos Tardes from Santiago.
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