Visit to Santiago, Chile

Hello friends and family!

It has been almost two months since my last blog post! I must catch you all up on the wonderful things that have been happening in my life since June. I'll start with my trip to Santiago to visit my mom, who was living and teaching in Chile as a Fulbright Scholar.

I was in Chile for five days and my mom was an excellent guide, I saw so many wonderful sights in a short period of time.

Chile is known for its wine and my mom and I love wine, so we visited the Cousiño Macul winery which is accessible by the metro system in Santiago. It was founded in 1870 by Matías Cousiño and is still run by the same family, six generations later.

Here I am with the founder:

Mom and I in the old bottling room.

Here are mom and the tour guide in the cellar where the wine used to be stored. Now this storage area is just used for show.

Another highlight of the trip was our visit to the Pablo Neruda house in Santiago called "La Chascona". While he was married to his first wife, he had a mistress who lived in this house that he bought for her. He eventually left his wife and married his mistress and they were together until he passed away. Besides his creativity in poetry, he was an artful home decorator and displayed many of his collections from his world travels. We were also told that he loved to entertain guests at dinner parties and so his dining room and bar were lively and fun. We were not able to take photos while inside the house, but here is the website if you would like to see photos.

The other museum that we went to was the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos (Museum of Memory and Human Rights). In a sensitive and moving way, it tells the story of the dictatorship of Agusto Pinochet and the human rights abuses that many suffered under his rule. If you are ever in Santiago I highly recommend it.

For lunch one day we went to the Mercado Central Fish Market.

On the Sunday we went to visit my friend, Carolina, a native of Santiago who I met while she was visiting Ecuador (she was featured here in Jungle Postcards back in March).  We had a fantastic lunch with her two sisters and her mom.

On my last day in Chile my mom took me to the Cerro Santa Lucía where the city of Santiago was founded by Pedro de Valdivia in 1541.

It was such a lovely trip! Thanks Moom for a fun trip to a new city!

I hope everyone is doing well. I'll post about my other adventures soon :)

Love,
Aliana