Nov 18 – Day 25 – Punta Arenas/Santiago
The Innata again provides a delicious breakfast- fresh eggs, toast with amazing Calafate honey, juice and steaming hot coffee. They were kind enough to let us keep the room until we needed to leave for our flight, which was great for us to finish packing our luggage for the flight back to Santiago in the afternoon.
The flight was easy and fine, and we dropped off at the Hotel Sommelier Boutique– which was, coincidently, on the same corner we were dropped off during our layover in Santiago 25 days ago, near Santa Lucía Hill. The hotel is very modern and cool…and after so much time in Ferdinand, it is huge! We calculated we could fit at least three Ferdinands in there…Once settled we walked through the city and had empanadas at the first place we tried them during our last visit- they shall forever be the gold standard of empanadas for us! But we also noticed the cough I started having this morning is getting worse.
Nov 19 – Day 26 – Santiago
After a rough night with a full blown head cold, I persevered on, still wanting to see and do all I could. We found a farmacia that sold me some Tylenol Cold equivalent and we then went to visit the Plaza, Cathedral, the Street Art (literally a painted street) and the Pre-Columbian Museum, which was very fascinating- well worth the time! Our hotel had a very hip rooftop bar and we finished the evening with pisco sours, knowing we were running out of time to enjoy them…we feel the trip quickly winding down.
Nov – 20 – Day 27 – Homeward Bound
I am still sick, but it really is just a head cold and nothing worse thankfully. Our flight out isn’t until 10pm (I am hoping to sleep through most of it) so we head out again to explore. We try to take the funicular and cable car up San Cristóbal Hill, but when we get there we find it is closed for repairs. So we just enjoy walking the city- it was sunny and warm and that part of the city has a funky artsy feel so we were content just wandering around. The hotel was holding our luggage so we went back there, had one last set of pisco sours, a remarkably terrifying cab ride to the airport, and a long flight home that I did not really sleep on… finally picked up at the airport by my son…home to puppies and parents and our own bed.
But the trip was amazing. No regrets on how we did it, the only thing we would recommend is to go while you can- a tough trip that would get tougher as you get older, but worth doing at any time in your life!
