Santiago

 Day 3 of the trip in Chile and I have already learned many things. I've learned that my Spanish is awful and that Chileans eat a lot of hot dogs. Luckily my couchsurfer host Nelson has been a huge help. My Spanish is now around a 2nd grade level thanks to him! Santiago is great! A big city with a small city feel. My first day of the trip me and Nelson hiked up a huge hill to see Cerro San Cristobal (which is pretty much a huge statue of Mary). It was a pretty intense hour long hike especially after being on a series of planes for an entire day...and after a mishap with my backpack in the airport that I won't go into. We took the "shorter and mas dificil" path. The view from the top was amazing! After about the hour and a half descent to the bottom, Nelson and I went to a cool restaurant where he introduced me to a "terramoda". This literally translates into "earthquake" and it's a mixture of white wine and pisco (national drink of chile), and is topped with two huge scoops of pineapple ice cream. Delicioso! Tomorrow when Nelson gets off work we are headed to Valparaiso, which is on the coast of Chile. So far I have really enjoyed my time in Santiago and I will be sad to leave Nelson and his mom, Anita.

Nelson!

Cerro San Cristobal

Terramoda

View from Cerro San Cristobal

Downtown Santiago

View from an old fort in the middle of the city

Another view from the fort..this time with me!

 

View from Cerro San Cristobal

View from the way down Cerro San Cristobal

 

These are graves. In Chile people are buried in the ground in cemetaries, and also sort of....in these buildings? Me and Nelson walked through this cemetary that was about 10 blocks or more. It was a really cool area.