The Grady Bunch - South America 2018

Day 20... 21... it all becomes a blur at this point as we lose a day to the International Date Line. We farewelled Lastarria with a final breakfast at Le Fournil - our local South American French bakery. Santiago prices have been pretty comparable to Australia, although it always seems odd to hand over 20,000 of any currency, even if it is only about $40. Weirdest thing is that they still use a 10 peso piece! We’ve used Uber in both Peru and Chile, and have found it to be a similar experience to Australia - cleaner and more modern cars than the average taxi. Seems like Santiago has had some issues though... as we arrived at the airport, the driver whipped out a ‘Turismo’ (tourism) sign, stopped the fare, and hid his phone. No Ubers allowed, and an entrepreneurial way to deal with it!!! So, as we fly out, what are the highlights of our trip? It’s hard to pick because we’ve had so many... Without a doubt, #1 is the Inca Trail and other Inca hikes around Olla...

Chile is 4200km long and only 178km wide, so from Santiago you can access both the Los Andes ski fields and the beaches of the Valparaiso coast within a couple of hours drive. The country is bordered by the Atacama Desert in the North, the Los Andes range in the East, Patagonia glaciers in the South, and the Pacific Ocean to the West.  This also makes it a well-protected spot for wine production and agriculture - apparently some of the best avos in the world! The primary industry is copper at 35% of GDP, with Chile the source of over 30% of the total global production.   As we drove through ‘Casablanca’ we could see vineyards for miles. Chile is also the only place in the world that produces the Carmenere grape, after the European vines were wiped out in the 19th century. Vina del Mar (‘Vineyard of the Sea’) is known as the garden city, and was originally home to the vineyards for Valparaiso. After an earthquake in 1906, the town was established wit...

The best laid plans... seems that many of Santiago’s best museums close on a Monday, but that doesn’t stop theBunch! Andrew and I started the day with a run in the dark. Sunrise is 8:05am due to daylight saving that doesn’t finish until May! It’s about the same latitude as Sydney, so it shows what a difference timezone placement makes! It was about 9 degrees, so everyone was rugged up on their way to work... ugh! We ran along the Rio Mapocho - a trickle of a river that was turned into a canal many years ago. It makes the Brisbane River look majestic! We were adopted by a stray dog, who seemed intent on showing us the way. He’d sit while we waited for the green man, show us the best route, and stuck by us for about 5km until we turned around. We nicknamed him ‘Verde’ (green) in honour of his commitment to the green man. My kind of dog :)  The Plaza de Armas is the main square in the city, established in 1541. It’s surrounded by buildings that feature ar...