DAY 13 was our last day in Puerto varas, I was so tired because we went to bed very late and sleeping in a hostel isn’t going to give you the best night sleep. Once somebody is up, everyone else is up. Our room is almost in the living area, the breakfast table is 30cm away from our door. It’s so frustrating, and I don’t get people. You want to wake up early, fine. No need to be so loud!
Anyway, we had to leave the room by 11am. Then we had the afternoon to enjoy Puerto Varas for the last time. We decided on a picnic on the beach and spent the entire afternoon there. It was super nice and very crowded!
By the end of the afternoon, the weather was getting weird, we felt like it was going to rain any minutes. So we went back to the hostel, packed our stuff, and headed to the bus station. This time we booked out tickets with TurBus, not sure what’s worth. I really hope it’s as good as Via Bariloche because I really need to sleep.
It’s a 12 hours ride and we should arrive in Santiago around 8am. The bus was beyond perfect! The service was good too. When we popped in, the guy walked around to give us blankets and pillows, not just give out… Put the pillow behind your back and spread the blanket nicely on your laps. Amazing! I slept almost the entire way to Santiago!
Day 14: We arrived as scheduled around 8am, and man it was hot! But at least there is no humidity. We headed to the subway; we had about 6 stops to get to Santa Lucia area where we are staying. Check in is not before 2pm, but we are hoping we can drop our backpacks. Arnaud booked us an apartment in a residence. He found it on booking.com, and it was the same price as any other hostel in Santiago. The reviews were all really good. So we decided to try it out. It seemed too good to be true but whatever, we gave it a shot. We got there around 9 am; it’s a huge and beautiful building with a concierge. 1st relief! He called the lady in charge and we went upstairs with her to her office. We dropped our bags and asked us to come back in the afternoon to get the keys for the apt.
We stopped at the 1st cafe and had a nice breakfast. We then decided to start sightseeing and try to do most of what we had on our list (Things to do and see in Santiago). We lost a day because of what happened in Bariloche so we can’t lose any more time.
Santiago is not that big and most touristy stuff are around the same area, which makes it easy to just walk around from one place to another. We went to Plaza de Armas, the cathedral, the public library, plaza de moneda (where the president palace is). The architecture is amazing! But overall, it looks like any other big cities, people rushing around to work. I thought it would be more “ghetto” but it’s not at all.
After lunch we went to the Park Cerro Santa Lucia, and walked up to the top of the Hill. The hill has an altitude of 629 m and a height of 69 m over the surrounding area. The hill is the remnant of a volcano 15 million years old. The park itself is super nice with ornate facades, stairways and fountains. At the top the hill, there is an amazing view of Santiago and the surrounding mountains. But we heard that the view from cero San Cristobal is even more breathtaking. We might try that tomorrow.
We went back to do the check in. and OH MY GOD! The apartment is AMAZING!!! Do you know how nice it is to have your own bathroom; I can finally leave my toothbrush in there! And a tub! The bedroom is huge; we even have a small balcony. There is also a swimming pool on the rooftop, so we went to check it out. The terrace is huge and has a lot of tables and chairs. SUPER NICE! The swimming pool is inside, which is a good thing because at this point it’s around 4pm and it’s about 35degres outside! Boiling hot!
Later on we decided to go get some food to cook and stay home. It’s nice to be in hostel because you meet a lot of people, but it feels so good to be alone, just the two of us.
