To say that this trip was spontaneous and completely unexpected is an understatement. My two best guy friends; Justin and Cole from Los Angeles were preparing for a long weekend away in Chile. Randomly one morning Cole is texting me “I have miles to use. Can you come to Chile with us?” “Uh when?” I reply. “Two weeks” he says. “Oh. Let me look into it”. With a chuckle at the end and saying “ya right” to myself.
After debating for about 48 hours I decide to do it… I figured why not. Cole has done all of the leg work for this trip, found our accommodations, etc. He has booked us an adorable room at a locally owned boutique hotel, Casasur. With our personalized door, insanely friendly staff and our delicious free breakfast we couldn’t have felt more at home.
Our first day is filed with roaming the streets and restaurant/bar hopping (per usual). Having this trip be so last minute I had absolutely no expectation as to what Chile would be like. The city itself has so much character and some of the best graffiti art I’ve ever seen.
I will note that out of all my travels Chile has been the hardest language barrier. I also expected hot sunny South American weather. Also wrong, it’s Fall going into Winter. We are nearing the end of the day when we decide seeing the sunset is a must. We make our way to the rooftop of the W hotel and the view from the roof is beyond wonderful.
Now onto our second day – my favorite day.. It has been planned with the amazing help of the hotel owner. He recommends that with our short time in Chile that The Andes mountains are a must! He knows a tour guide so we decide to commit and it’s an early morning for us and off we go. The ride is a bit long – about three hours, however, about two hours in and the view from the car window starts to change.
We are clearly getting closer and no photo could prepare us for what we were about to see. We snap some photos, pour some wine and off we go across the mountains. We take our time walking around when we turn the first corner and there is some of the prettiest glacier water I’ve ever seen.
Completely happy with what we see Justin says, “why don’t we keep going?” So we do. We turn the second corner when all of a sudden that initial lake that we were already blown away by is now 10x the size we thought it was.
After countless pictures and videos we head back to the car. Meanwhile our guide has set out a full spread for us to enjoy. More wine, cheese, sausage, crackers, chicken sandwiches and plenty more. The day is winding down and you can tell it was a successful day by the lack of talking and amount of napping taking place on our way back to Santiago.
Our last day is here and the only other thing on our list was to go to a winery. After all, Chile is the biggest wine distributor in all South America. We don’t have too much time so we opt to stay somewhat close to our hotel. Winery of choice is Concha y Toro which is the largest wine distributor in Chile. What was really beautiful about this experience was the color of the vines given the time of the year.
Snapping some photos, sipping more wine and eating our light lunch on this beautiful Fall day was the best way we could have ended this amazing trip to Chile. Until next time South America!
The Echoing World 