We just arrived in Chile — Around Santiago
For our first few days in Chile, we stayed in Santiago for the EODP orientation. And yes, we had some free time to explore Santiago and around.
A weekend in Santiago
Cerro San Cristobal is famous for Saturday morning activity. We too hired bicycles and had fun biking up the hill. We caught nice views of the city from the top.
On Sunday, we hopped into a bus to La Reina and went trekking to a park, Aguas de Ramon. No one told us that the tickets for the bus had to be bought at the metro station — making the ride to the national park a free one for us. For trekking, there are 3 trails that one can take — we opted for Saltos de Apoquindo. But we landed up doing a shorter ~9 kms trek because there wasn’t enough time. It’s the first time we saw profound cacti vegetation around us and the popular cowboys on their horses! From the dry terrain, our shoes were completely soiled in dry dust.
Valparaiso
Valparaiso is a very interesting city, especially if you can take a free tour of the city (starts from near the center) and listen to all the history and local stories. It is famous for its wall paintings, which are just all over the place — makes you realize how much space we have for expressions & art!
They also take great care of their dogs and cats. 300k people and 200k cats live in Valparaiso — fact shared by the tour guide. He was very fascinated by this painting of a dog with one ear up and the other one down, and that the real dog (Osita) always sits beside the painting. Valparaiso cerros are good to hang out and have helados (ice-creams).
