Chile - Day 1

We arrived in Santiago at 12:30 pm local time after flying all night from Toronto. Amy gave me the window so I was able to see the lights of the eastern seaboard of the U.S., Nassau, and eastern Cuba as we headed south - pretty incredible views.  And although it was quite cloudy as the sun rose, I was able to catch my first glimpse of the Andes as we flew over Peru.  Coming into Santiago, the clouds blocked most of the view.  However, we saw glimpses of the mountains in the distance and the sand dunes along the coast at Concon (which we will explore on Thursday).

The flight ended up landing almost 30 minutes late and it took forever to get our bags. Immigration and customs were a breeze, but, as seems to be the case every time we travel, getting our rental car took forever.  Once we finally got it, we drove into town to find our bed & breakfast (more of a glorified hostel).  Driving in a new place is always interesting, but so far driving here doesn't seem too terrible.

Because of the late arrival of our flight and our time spent in one of the upper rings if hell - I mean renting a car - we missed the 3:00 pm walking tour of Santiago we had hoped to do.  So instead we got ourselves situated, got cleaned up, and headed out to explore the area on our own. We took a nice long walk through a number of parks (including a really neat sculpture park we week need to explore some more) along the Mapocho River, which cuts through the middle of town.  

We showed up for our 8:00 pm dinner reservations at an amazing restaurant called "Aqui Esta Coco" and were one of only two couples there.  Apparently dinner here starts a bit later than in the States (the other couple also ended up being Americans).  We split a ridiculous seafood appetizer that had mussels, lobster claws, scallops, shrimp, octopus, smoked salmon, and the most amazing whitefish ceviche.  For our dinners, Amy had "Land and Sea," which had a crawfish on top of a perfectly cooked piece of salmon on top of the biggest asparagus I've ever seen, all covered in a tasty jus. She also had her first glass of Chilean wine which, based on the giggling after dinner, was very tasty as well. For my meal, l had Conger eel sautéed with onions and tomatoes on top of fries.  It was also really good. 

Now, it's an early night to bed so we can rest up and get ready for our first hike tomorrow.