Santiago

Upon hearing that we planned to spend three days in Santiago, just about everyone we spoke to (Chilean or otherwise) asked: "Why?"  Then, they explained that we should go to Valparaiso instead, at least for a day trip.  But organizing a day trip sounded like it would be hectic and a lot of work, and since our change in flight time meant we arrived at 4:00 a.m. on our first day, we opted for a more relaxing schedule and stuck around.

Although Santiago isn't my favorite city, I don't know that it quite deserves the apparently ubiquitous dismissive attitude.  It has some beautiful parks and some nice areas.  Most importantly, we had fun there -- it wasn't a bad place to recuperate from the high adventure of Antarctica and Patagonia.  We took a walking tour that gave us a basic overview of Chilean history; ate mediocre, overpriced seafood at the Mercado Central; met up with friends from Antarctica for a Thanksgiving meal where the Italian food was surprisingly terrible but the company was excellent; wandered aimlessly around neighborhoods close to our hotel; thoroughly enjoyed a Chilean cooking class where we made pisco sours, ceviche, empanadas, and leche asada; and showed up to dinner at a fancy restaurant wearing flannel, ripped jeans, and chucks (OK, that was just me -- but Rose was also underdressed!).

But our most fun day was spent less than an hour outside Santiago visiting three boutique wineries in the Casablanca valley.  Each winery was quite different from the others.  For example, Kingston, our first winery, is owned by a family trust, is located on land that has been owned by the family for over 100 years, and each wine is named after a favorite family horse.  In contrast, Quay, our last winery, is the joint winemaking project for a group of 11 wine growers in the region.  Several of the wines were quite good; my favorites were the two reds (one pinot noir, one syrah) from Kingston.

So, yeah.  Santiago isn't a bad place to spend a few days, even though for me at least it isn't a destination of choice in its own right.