Cerro San Cristóbal
From the beginning of our RTW planning, Tony and I knew we wanted to start our journey in Santiago, Chile. From everything we read, Santiago was rumored to be safe, modern, and inexpensive. In addition, we heard fabulous things about its great weather, food scene, and friendly locals.
Having just spent a large majority of the past month in this magical city (we have since moved on to Argentina), I am left reflecting on my personal experiences with the city and comparing them to my initial research and my initial first impressions.
So did it live up to my high expectations?
I am going to have to say YES!
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Maybe it was that first college class where you found the subject actually interesting and realized you wanted to learn more…
Maybe you confidently walked into that party your Senior year in college and saw that cute girl across the room…
Maybe it was that job interview where the interviewer and your future boss laughed at all of your jokes…
… but for whatever reason, you knew ahead of time, before anything spine-tingling good had even occurred, that your life would be forever altered.
That was me at La Fuente Alemana.
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Scenario: I am on death row. The prison official asks me what I want for my last meal.
My answer:
“Oooooo anything chocolate please… and preferably in the form of ice cream. Thanks officer!”
By now you probably can get an idea for how much I absolutely adore chocolate ice cream. I can eat it anywhere, anytime, and no matter how full I am from a meal, I always have a little side tummy dedicated to dessert. Some might say I should see a doctor, but I find my ability to house ice cream to be one of my greatest strengths.
My sister-in-law, Maggie, is one of the few people who can keep up with me in this department. She is always down for eating ice cream, which is awesome because then I don’t feel like a complete fatty eating it by myself.
Being the good sister that she is, she was genuinely concerned about my ability to find ice cream in some of the places Tony and I had on our RTW list. Thus, she did her research on Santiago and found a gelato place, Emporio La Rosa, for Tony and I to try out once we arrived down here.
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Meg enthusiastically mocks me everytime I say it, but since getting off of the plane in Punta Arenas, Chile, I can’t help but be overwhelmed by the remoteness of Patagonia… We are at the very end of the world!
There, I said it. Maybe now I can try and get past it.
Yeah… it’s wayyyy down there. And yes, that is Antarctica just below us.
Catching up on the news
After a brief coffee break in Punta Arenas after we landed, we hitched a ride on the last bus to Puerto Natales, which was going to be our launching point into Torres del Paine.
You might have recently heard of about Torres del Paine as a good chunk was burned in a savage forest fire only 3 weeks ago, with many parts still closed to the public. Newsflash: Don’t burn your TP when in a forest… as an Israeli tourist just learned.
While fairly new to me as a must-see destination, it quickly grabbed my imagination as the land that time forgot. For hundreds of miles in any direction, it is mountains, rivers, and shimmering blue lakes.
Torres del Paine – The Towers Trek
Those three peaks to the right are just 5 hours of trekking away....
With the high expense of getting to the park and our aversion to renting camping gear to stay overnight, we thought it best to get the most bang for our buck and do the route to Las Torres (AKA The Towers) as a day hike.
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