Exploring Chile: Middle-Age Style

I have likely stated before on this blog site that I was a late blooming traveler. In the last 7 years or so, I have become addicted to traveling. I find great satisfaction and fulfillment in experiencing not only the sights and sounds, but the people and cultures of the varying parts of the world. There is much to learn from these journeys. Each time I return home, I realize something has changed a bit inside of me.

I am also realizing that my definition of who I am has broadened. We as a people like to define ourselves with the label of where we have either originated or lived, or currently reside. "I'm an American....I'm Indian....I'm Irish.....I'm Mexican." Little by little, through my travels, while I still see the cultural differences, I also have become aware of the commonalities. Our needs and values are principally quite similar. We all know and want peace and love. We all ultimately value our family and friends despite the differences. I make these statements in the most basic and simplistic form. Obviously, we do not always see these values at the forefront of human behavior.

Call me a cockeyed optimist, but I truly believe we are all possessing a very similar set of values in our lives. Our conditions and misguided selectively created ideologies often leads many astray from those core principals. However, when I travel, I try and pay close attention to the people of the land in which I'm visiting. Both respectfully and with open eyes. What I often end up seeing, are people desiring the same core value objectives from life.

With that being said, the true purpose of this blog is to talk about exploring and adventurism even in your 50's and 60's. If you would have told me when I was in my 20's that I would be hiking in Patagonia, Chile at 63 years old I would probably have thought I was smoking something too strong.

A few weeks ago, that's exactly what I did, alongside my wife and greatest travel partner. What I'm trying to emphasize here, it's not necessarily how you do something, but more why you do it. What is the reward of hiking certain mountains or trails? Is it the end goal? The fact you can look back and claim you did it!

I think what I've learned in my 50's and now 60's, is that what's important is the process. I don't necessarily need the prize at the end to say "I did it! " Some things in my travels fall into the checking it off the bucket list, but generally the most memorable or moving things happen in that process of just getting there. I remember reading a Tony Robbins book and then listening to his tapes many years ago. The one thing that resonated with me the most, was aspire to the end goal, but don't forget to pay attention and enjoy the process along the way. In reality, that is where we spend more of our life, in the process.

Of course, with that somewhat philosophical statement, I do not enjoy the process of traveling. Meaning, the packing, the getting to the airport, security lines, bad airport and airplane food etc. However, I do enjoy the process once I'm at my destination. Maybe I need to work more on finding ways to enjoy the prelude to actually traveling. That's for another blog/discussion.

Back to the journey at hand. I'm going to focus more on the time spent in Patagonia for this post, but will dip into some of the other things we enjoyed in Chile in this Part I installment. We flew non-stop from JFK, NY to Santiago, Chile. It was about a 10 hour flight. Chile is one hour ahead of us, so we lost an hour going. We landed in Santiago about 7AM local time. In some form of a mini miracle, we were able to check into our room early.

My face after 10 hour flight now waiting almost an hour for car to pick us up.......

I always feel a bit grungy after a long flight, but I really needed to stretch out. We decided to hit the streets of Santiago and find some breakfast. Our hotel was nestled in right across the street from a big sprawling park filled with folks walking their dogs and jogging. Many couples were sprinkled about on park benches or on the grass getting close. It was nice to see after being cramped up in a metal tube for almost half a day.

Santiago is a huge city of over 8 million people. It has several varying neighborhoods both in character and design. It's a very walkable city and before we knew it, we had put in over 5 miles checking out a few of the local sights.

The next couple of days we went on full day tours. First to the wine country in the nearby Maipo Valley. The following day was a tour to the coastal city of Valparaiso. Both of these tours were really interesting and we met some very nice folks along the way from different parts of the world. In fact, one young man from Belgium met us for dinner on the back end of the trip in Santiago after we were returning from Patagonia. Again, things like this are why I find traveling to be such a great life experience. The world is getting smaller and to meet people from all over the globe and spend some time speaking with them can be very enlightening to how we move forward in life. Here's a link to the wine tour: https://www.viator.com/tours/Santiago/Maipo-Valley-Wine-Tour-Including-3-Vineyards-and-Country-Town-of-Isla-de-Maipo/d713-20268P25

Here are a handful of pics from Valparaiso day tour....

Observation deck of Torre Gran Costanera at sunset (64 stories)

Some shots from atop Santa Lucia Hill

Some vineyard & wine tasting pictures...

Tallest building in all of South America

Local city park across from Hotel Ismael where we stayed

I'm realizing how much more I could write about from our days in Santiago, Maipo Valley & Valparaiso.

I will just give you a little taste of our trip through the streets of Valparaiso through some photos. The street art you see on walls of homes and businesses, staircases and murals, is truly like walking through an art museum, only it's displayed for free for anyone to see and enjoy. Here's the link to the tour we took in Valparaiso: https://www.viator.com/tours/Santiago/Private-Full-Day-Comprehensive-Valparaiso-Tour/d713-69875P10

To recap at this point, we came out of the box running once we touched down in Santiago, Chile.

The first day we strolled around town, over 5 miles of strolling. Day 2 was a 6AM wake-up for an all day wine tour of the Maipo Valley and wine tasting. Day 3, up again quite early for an all day tour of the coastal town of Valparaiso and visit to a vineyard in the Casablanca wine district. Day 4 was less hectic . It was our chance to visit some of the various neighborhoods around Santiago, as well as take in a sunset visit to the Torre Grande Constanera from the observation deck.

Now it was time for the true part two of our journey to Chile. Patagonia here we come!

And so it starts with a Pisco Sour... the drink of Chile