I made it though the long flight to Santiago, Chile. Most of the flight was spent reading, sleeping, or listening to my iPod. As we exited the plane we were met my Jimmy, an AGUNSA agent, who helped us through customs. He was great because he showed us to the "secret” shorter lines and had others to help with our luggage. The research group we met in Dallas from Woods Hole was immediately catching a connecting flight to Puenta Arenas, Chile. So, we said good-bye for a day to them. Left in Santiago with me were Marcy and Kevin.
Marcy, Kevin, and I are doing a little sight seeing later on in the day while in Santiago, Chile.
Both Marcy and Kevin are with the group from the University of Texas. After the airport we took a bus taxi to our hotel, the Hotel Montecarlo.
Mrs. Pena and Marcy shared a room and Marcy is trying to call Kevin’s room before we go to lunch.
Here I am in front of our hotel, Hotel Montecarlo in Santiago, Chile.
The 3 of us prepared with maps of Santiago headed out in search of a yummy lunch and interesting sights. We found a nice little sidewalk café for lunch in a beautiful plaza. After lunch, we just walked around seeing the beautiful sights in Santiago. Here are a couple of pictures we saw as we walked.
This is a huge and very old church, the Catedral de Santiago.
The inside of Catedral de Santiago—it is so beautiful!
This is just one of the many beautiful sculptures inside the church, Jesus on the Cross.
The Chile Congress Building looked very similar to some government buildings in the US
After walking around for a couple of hours we deiced to take a tramcar to the top of a very big hill that overlooked the whole city of Santiago.
What a beautiful and huge city! I took this photo at the top of the tram ride. Santiago is much larger than Austin; Santiago has over 14 million more people than Austin, Texas!
Once we got off the tram we walked up a lot of stairs to a huge statue of Mary, the mother of Jesus.
This is the statue of Mary once we got to the top of the tram ride. We still had many stairs to climb to actually get to her.
After all the stairs and with tired legs we reached the very top of the hill and Mary.
Next to the statue of Mary is a prayer area with many prayer candles and written prayers on the walls. These 2 boys were helping by relighting some of the candles.
We then decided to take a different way back down he hill. We took a very high cable car.
This is a cable car like ours going the opposite direction. We were very high, it was fun but also a little scary being so high!
I also took this picture of the Alps Mountain Range from the cable car. Look at the snow covered peaks, beyond the city, so cool!
Finally to end our day in Santiago we ate dinner in a small artsy plaza.
The plaza was very new and cool with many art galleries, shops, and restaurants
My day in Santiago was excellent! I got to experience and see as much as possible in 1 day. Now I was exhausted and ready for bed. Good night.
Tomorrow I will be waking up early for my flight to Puenta Arenas at 10:55 a.m.