World Cruise Day 41/152 - I go, you go, we all go, to Santiago!

Cruise day: 41/152
Ports days: 14
Sea days: 27
Countries: 5
Continents: 2
Ports: 9

First, an update.  Our cabin steward told us that the plumbers determined that the source of our toilet blockage yesterday was a bunch of facial tissues.  They can't tell where they came from as multiple cabins are connected with a single plumbing line, even across both sides of the ship.  The reason this is important is that when we returned from our excursion today, our toilet once again would not flush.  They traced it down to another blockage, most likely from the opposite side of the ship.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUCEMENT

There are exactly two things that should go into cruise ship toilets.

1. Anything produced and excreted from your body
2. The toilet paper provided by the cruise line

THAT'S IT! 

If you're putting ANYTHING else in your cruise ship toilet - STOP IT!

Thank you.

OK - on to today - wait, I forgot something about yesterday.

One thing Viking excels at is immersive experiences when it comes to ports.  Yesterday, Viking brought somewhere around 25 local entertainers on the ship and they performed last night in the Star Theater. We did not attend but watched on our TV.  It isn't our type of entertainment, but we can still appreciate the beauty of traditional dance and song from locations we visit.  Kudos to Viking for offering that type of local entertainment as a means to enrich our experience.

OK - on to today, for real this time.

We chose the eight-hour Santiago excursion today. This meant meeting on the pier at 8:00 AM.  Wow.  That's early.  We usually aren't out of bed before then.  How will we eat?  Lightbulb moment - room service!  We put the hanger on our door last night for a 7-7:15AM delivery.  Fast-forward to 6:55AM this morning and *buzz* - our doorbell went off.  It was room service delivering early.  After a mad scramble to get something decent on, I opened the door and accepted the tray.  Everything was as we ordered, and it worked out great, except for being earlier than expected.

We took the shuttle bus to the transportation hub and met our tour bus.  The bus was interesting.  First, the wheel looked odd.

The extra hardware around the wheel is a tire inflation system that keeps the tire properly inflated all the time. I've never seen anything like it.

Here's the second.  I didn't know what this was.

Arlona figured out that it was thigh support for extended bus travel.  

While it looked comfy, I was afraid that if I wedged by overly large sneakers in there, I might never get out.

We headed out on the bus through Valparaiso.  Valparaiso has a combination of legitimate street art and graffiti all throughout the city.

Street vendors are set up all around Valparaiso.  We found this interesting.  Looking for caulk?  Got it.  Guitars?  Yup - got that covered too!

As we headed southwest on highway 68, we passed through a couple of valleys - Casablanca and Curacavi.  These are agricultural areas.  Vinyards take a good portion of the area as well as farming fruit and vegetables.

They don't farm livestock because their hilly terrain doesn't lend itself to raising tender beef.  

We drove through vineyards. Chile has a thriving wine business. 

Their climate and terrain are similar to California's with both sitting around 32-degrees of latitude from the equator, just in opposite directions.  Much like San Francisco and Oakland, California, where San Francisco can be chilly and overcast, but just inland, Oakland can be sunny and warm.  Today, Valparaiso was in the mid-60s, but Santiago was sunny and in the mid-80s.

About 90 minutes later, we arrived in Santiago.  Chile has a population of around 20 million. About seven million of those live in the greater-Santiago area - more than 1/3 of the country's population.  Chile is interesting as it is a single-state country.  Because of that, their government is divided into different areas.  The president works in Santiago while the congress works in Valparaiso.

When we arrived, the first this we noticed was that Santiago also deals with graffiti.

The next thing we noticed was that this business looked quite a bit like a Walmart - even the sign.

As it turns out, Walmart bought out this popular Chilean retailer.  Because it was so well established, they decided to retain the name, but add the Walmart look.  Walmart is everywhere.

Our first stop was at the presidential palace - the "coin palace".  It is called that as it was originally the Chilean mint and then was repurposed as the presidential palace.

Under the palace, there is a cultural center.  We were allowed to use the restroom, but could not go into the store.  The exhibits were all closed.

As we walked around the town, we got a kick out of the pedestrian walk/don't walk lights.

When you get the walk light, the man starts walking.  As the time grows short, he keeps speeding up and ends up running.  Hilarious!

Santiago has a really interesting mishmash of architectural styles throughout the city.  The new areas have a decidedly modern flair.

We don't know what this guy was.

Our guide explained that this statue symbolized the fact that the populace is "broken" because there are no longer any purebred native people anymore.

On the way to lunch, we passed San Cristóbal Hill which featured a statue of the Virgin Mary.

A cable car line ran from the base of the hill up to the sanctuary at the top.

Our restaurant was near the base of the hill.  We enjoyed a nice lunch with a pumpkin soup, flounder and rice, and a flan-like dessert.

We could also get a glimpse of Gran Torre Santiago, the tallest building in South America and 984 feet.

Police vehicles here are heavily fortified.  If you read yesterday's entry, you saw the bus covered in wire fencing.  Here's a police cruiser with the same treatment.

While waiting for our tour bus, we could hear squeaking in the trees.  We spotted this - a parrot nest.

Arlona was spot on spotting the parrots in the trees.

Our next stop was at a local artist market.  We browsed but didn't find anything we had to have.

Viking held another speakeasy night tonight.  One of the bartenders on the ship has won a European bartender competition and wowed the crowd with his bottle flipping.

We wound up meeting Susan and Dave - fellow cruisers.  Turns out, they also live in The Villages.  To make it even more interesting, they retired to The VIllages from Muskegon, Michigan - Arlona's hometown.  So, we've now met two other couples from The Villages that we did not know before boarding, and two from Muskegon.  Amazing. Plus, that makes ten Villagers that are cruising together on this trip.

We enjoyed a light dinner on the Aquavit patio with Jim & Lynne.  Arlona caught a shot as we sailed out of Valparaiso.

As we were ready to head to the room, we headed over and caught yet another amazing sunset.

One more housekeeping note - I previously incorrectly reported that we have four sea days after Valparaiso.  Nope!  One sea day - then port in Puerto Montt, Chile.  So, sea day tomorrow.