A long weekend in Santiago de Chile (and what you can do in five days)

Doing international travel when staying in Cusco is unfortunately not the easiest undertaking. Because of the airport size and environment the flights can't go too far. Thus 95% of all flights are national, with most of them going to Lima. While there are many international flight options from Lima, it is quite time-consuming to change airplanes and one might loose almost a day to get somewhere.

So when we heard that since recently there is a direct flight from Cusco to Santiago de Chile, we were immediately drawn to visit for a few days. 

Chile is one of Peru's neighboring countries and I've actually visited it before (as many Peruvians have). It's very common to cross the border in the south between Tacna and Arica and stay there for a day. While this was exciting for younger me, I feel like a day in a border town wasn't enough to really grasp Chile's vibe and spirit.

So me, my mother, my aunt and my cousin (whose university was on strike at that time) headed to Santiago and arrived after around three hours. We've headed directly to our hotel which was located in the Providencia neighborhood and decided to make the most of our remaining afternoon. We walked to the nearby cable car station and took a ride up to the San Cristobal mountain (around 4 USD for the return trip). Cable cars are basically not existing in Peru (in fact, there seems to be only one route in the whole country).

Once arrived at the top, we had a beautiful view over the whole city and the nearby mountains.

We wanted to take advantage of the beautiful weather and headed to the Sky Costanera, a big shopping mall and also the highest building in latin america at 300 meters high (entrance 18 USD). 

On day 2, we decided to take a trip to the nearby Valparaiso and Viña del Mar. There are direct buses for around 15 USD return leaving from the metro station "Pajaritos" and the ride takes around 1.5 hours. Once arrived, we took a local metro in Valparaiso to the city center. Valparaiso is famous for its street art and has historical importance to Chile with its proximity to the sea. 

While it was interesting to experience another part of Chile, I was not a huge fan of Valparaiso. Mainly because I didn't feel as safe and wasn't as clean compared to Santiago. It was also a bit challenging to navigate the streets and hills to find the best artwork. 

Next, we decided to take a 15-minute metro ride to Viña del Mar, a much newer and more modern city with a completely different vibe compared to Valparaiso. We took a walk to the beach and walked around the city center. While it is modern and clean, I also didn't find this city too interesting.

We took a bus back to our bus terminal to leave for Santiago, which was not the easiest undertaking as the bus did not announce or show which stop would be the next. Based on google maps I figured out our stop was approaching and pushed the button and the bus driver immediately stopped. Apparently it's common outside of Santiago for the bus to stop whenever you push the button (and not at the actual stop) and because I was too embarrassed of my mistake, we just got off and walked the two blocks to our actual destination.

We took day 3 and 4 to see more of Santiago and visited the museum of human rights (free entry), the Palacio de la Moneda (free entry), the Santa Lucia Hill (also free) and did some shopping at the Sky Costanera mall.

One of the last stops was a trip to the Peruvian restaurant la mar. Now you might be asking yourself why we would go to have Peruvian food in Chile. The reason is simple, one of the supervising chefs was my aunt's friend from Lima (speaks for the authenticity of the place :)).  

Also this place is mentioned by a Chilean blog to have the best Pisco Sour in Santiago, so of course we had to try it.

This restaurant is located in a quite posh and very safe neighborhood and will definitely satisfy any seafood lover. But even people like me, that are not a huge fan of seafood or food that is "too fishy" there are plenty of delicious options.

On day 5, it was already time to go home, so we squeezed everything in our small backpacks and took one last walk around our neighborhood.

During the flight home I got the window seat and nearing Cusco I was able to spot something that looked like the rainbow mountain area, which motivated me more to finally give this spot a visit. More on that soon in a post.