Welcome to South America, and welcome to Chile! One of our city guides, Patricio, exemplified the care our tour company, Grand Circle Travel, took to meet our needs. Barb left her cane at home in Vestal, and Patricio took the time...........and his personal car..........to drive us to a hospital supply store for a replacement!

The sewage-laden Mapocho river runs through Santiago, but in an effort to clean it, several filtering stations are being constructed along its route as it passes along. Much of the rapid moving water is from glacial melt. The girl? The drawing just happened to be there as I was taking a photo of the river........hmmmm.......

One of the homes of the Nobel laureate Neruda.

Santiago's main square, the Plaza de Armas, is a mix of old and new..........museums, government buildings, a cathedral, the post office and other important structures surround a large open plaza, where one finds mimes, artists, jugglers, roving musicians and folk who are on their way to one of the nearby markets.

The Plaza de Armas has been a center of attractions and activities since its founding in 1541.

.....inside the Cathedral church...........

The presidential palace

Here is a street scene in Santiago on a pedestrian mall. Wait til you see what's inside!

We are promised scenery, and did we ever see it! This is the "coffee with legs" shop, and all the waitresses are dressed like this.

The good news.........Grand Circle always stops at quality shops, whether leather, jewelry or the lapis luzuli semiprecious stones shown here. The bad news.......things are always pricey.

We visit the port city of Valparaiso, ascending to the top of the mountain by these very old, and we hope very safe, cable cars.

Valparaiso is a UNESCO designated World Heritage Site

English influence is here, as well as other European cultures....

Graffiti are high art here........

Some scenes from Valparaiso

.......we are entertained by a husband-and-wife duo.

We enjoy another great lunch overlooking the city from atop the mountain..........and...........

We visit a Chilean horse-breeding ranch, and are treated to an exhibition of the unique side-stepping training. We enjoy a meal at this ranch.

In Chile the gaucho became the huaso; the skilled horseman who worked the vast herds on the cattle on the Chilean plains. They became experts at rounding up and corralling stray animals; this expertise is reflected in their rodeos which are held in media lunas (half circle arenas) resembling corrals.

The Patagonian "rodeo" is not like ours.........success is when the two riders and their trained horses pin the steer along the corral wall.

This was a historical museum, in the Puerto Montt area. You had to be there.

We see an old washing machine, as well as a wide variety of old farm equipment, musical instruments, sewing machines and the like from days gone by. The farmers amongst us clearly identified some of the old stuff.

Our whole tour group was divided; our subgroup was to locate smoked salmon in the Puerto Montt fish market. But we had no idea what we were looking for because the "shopping list" was totally in Spanish! By happy chance, we stumble on our assigned product, and when we all gathered together that evening, we enjoyed the fish, some cheeses, some crackers and a neat liquer as snacks before one of GCT's discovery lectures.

And we leave Puerto Montt in Chile's Patagonia region, on our way to Argentina. We will use three different boats and four bus rides, in this trip which is described as one of the world's most spectacular day trips. It will take a full day and it turns into a great adventure.

We view inspiring Andean peaks, including this extinct but stunning Osorno volcano.