Monday, February 9, 2015

Friday, December 19, 2014 – Valparaiso, Chile –Cloudy - 65F

Coquimbo, Chile to Valparaiso, Chile: 200 Nautical Miles (21.6 knots)

Total Distance (Los Angeles to Valparaiso): 5309 Nautical Miles – 6105 miles

We have arrived in Valparaiso, Chile after the equivalent of of back to back transcontinental flights.  It is still cloudy and cool in Chile.

20141219_Valpo (Small)20141219_Valparaiso (Small)

Valparaiso, Chile

We had our first breakfast together this whole cruise in the Horizon Court.  It was not as crowded as some debarkation days and all the menu items were still available.  The breakfast, as always, was very good.

We have transfers to the Intercontinental Hotel in Santiago.  The debarkation process is pretty smooth and we find our bus with no difficulty.  Since we came in by ship, there is no “reciprocation fee”.  The ride to Santiago takes us through the Central Valley (agricultural and wine growing area).  The bus dropped some people at the airport and then headed on to the city.  Since we had taken this ride before, I could tell that our bus driver had gotten off the highway much to soon.  As it turned out, he had to backtrack to the highway and then continue to the Hotel in heavy traffic.  Some passengers missed an afternoon tour because the bus arrived an hour late.

Santiago, Chile

Now that we are away from the coast, the weather has improved – Sunny and warner.

The hotel (via Princess) had cookies and cokes for us as well as facilities.  We still had to get to the Plaza Suites Condos so we hired a cab.  After a somewhat harrowing ride through Santiago traffic, we made it to our hotel. 

The office is on the 14th Floor and manned by a couple of rotating semi-professionals – it was too early to check in so we left our bags with them and took a little tour around the neighborhood.  The Plaza Suites is very centrally located in Santiago – you can walk anywhere from there. 

Some of the sites along our walk…

20141219_Basilica de la Merced (Small)

Basilica de la Merced

20141219_Museo de Bellas Artes (Small)

Museo de Bellas Artes

20141219_Santa Lucia Hill (Small)

Santa Lucia Hill

Our room was finally ready – it is a nice condo on the 19th floor in Tower D (1901).  Although it is close to the elevator, we don’t expect to hear much foot traffic in the halls this high up.  The room is exactly the same as the last time we stayed in this place except that the place has deteriorated somewhat.

20141219_view from 1901 (Small)

View from 1901

The condo complex still has a full service market on the ground floor so we shopped for items for the weekend.  We are not intending to have any meals out in Santiago (except for McD Conos).  There is a good sized fridge in the apartment so we can stock up for the next few days.

Even though the condo has WiFi (not super fast), we also have T-Mobile free data and texting.  We did have to get maintenance to fix our toilet and check out our TV (which wound up never working – no matter, Chilean TV is a wasteland).  Yet, you can’t beat the price of the Condo ($66.30 per night).

We are a little tired so we spent the rest of the evening reading in the condo – the bed is comfortable.

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