December 12,

I was awakened by Jeff around 0930! That sounds shocking but we got to bed around 0230. We quickly put on clothes and went to our included breakfast. It was great! They had awesome cherries, strawberries and blueberries; yogurt; cereals; toast; scrambled and hard boiled eggs; sausage links; and pastries. We definitely had our fill. Finished, we went back to our room; packed our stuff back up; and showered. We checked out at 1200, but stored our luggage with them because we can’t check into our next place until after 1600. 

We went exploring – deciding to go to the Cable Car (Teleferico). It’s up on San Cristobal Hill. The hill is 880m or 2,890 ft and was named for St Christopher by Spanish Conquistadors. Its original indigenous name is Tupahue. Jeff paid 6,680 CLP (Chilean Peso) or $7.34 for a round trip on the cable car. We boarded and went up to the top through the midpoint. At the top we took our time and walked around. The views over the city could be stupendous, but there was quite a bit of smog hazily obscuring the sights. 😞🙁  Anyway on top we went to a sanctuary dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, and a 22m (72 ft) statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, with a small chapel under the statue. The statue itself towers 14 m (45 ft) tall with the pedestal on which it rests being 8.3 m (27 ft) in height. It weighs 36,610 kilograms. There was also a little museum explaining about the hill, the cable car, the funicular – which is one hundred years old this year, and the statue. We also went to the Japanese Garden up here. It was a glorious day, too bad about the smog (which was not the worst we have ever experienced- we could not taste the air). Lastly we had lunch at Cafe Tudor. We shared a large empanada of meat & onion mix and I had a coke. Jeff drank water we were carrying. It cost us 6,100 CLP or $6.65.

We caught the cable car back down. We then walked back to the Hotel, picked up our luggage, and caught a Cabify (like Uber) to our apartment. It is more in the city center of Santiago and we will be there a week. This cab ride was interesting – the lady whizzed about while talking to us in pretty good English. She gave us recommendations to see, and where to eat. 

We arrived at our place (we had to backtrack a bit, because we gave the wrong end point). We got checked in and went to our place on the 22nd floor! It is lovely with a bedroom/bathroom loft. The windows are two stories because of this… Gorgeous! We also have a balcony! We unpacked and settled in. Then Jeff went to a local store for supper stuff as I blogged. We ate out on our balcony, reminisced, and enjoyed our blessed day! Simply living… just someplace else!!