Santiago to Valpereiso, Chile

Santiago to Valpereiso, Chile            Monday,  February 8, 2016

After our last Time Suite buffet breakfast, Bernardo drove us through the city for a last look at Santiago. What a great city! We met Bernardo at the City Tour counter in the Mall and had a great conversation about his future honeymoon plans to visit the USA in April. After our long conversation, he offered to take us to Valpereiso for $100.00 … a good buy so off we went through the mountain ranges and the Chile vineyards to the seaside town of Valpereiso….about 75 miles down a super three lane highway. 

Bernardo gave us a quick tour of this Chilean town that has lost most of its shipping business due to the Panama Canal.  Valpereiso was nothing like Santiago….lots of graffiti, rundown buildings, narrow dirty streets, and awful smells.

 

Bernardo kept reminding us that it was not a safe place to be walking about as he stopped in different areas for a few pictures.  We felt very fortunate to have him giving us the highlights of our last moments in Chile.

 

He took us by some interesting art works,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

military square,

 

one of the numerous funiculars to take you to the top of the mountain,

and some wonderful architectural wonders before delivering us to the port entrance where porters took our bags directly to the ship. Larry and I remembered our last visit here two years ago. At that time we walked directly out of the port terminal and boarded a train that took us to the neighboring seaside vacation lovers town of Vina del Mar.  What a great day that we had there!

After bidding Bernardo farewell, we boarded the P and O Arcadia with very little waiting time and went directly to our room on the seventh floor in the front of the ship. From there we went up to the nine floor deck to have a great lunch. So begins our first crossing of the Pacific Ocean…by ship.