Oh, What a Difference a Day Makes!

Here we are well rested and ready to go. I just want everyone to know what a fantastic job Princess did, dealing with the 24 hour delay. We had booked our air reservations through Princess and am I glad we did. They took care of everything. Once we arrived in Santiago we were met by Princess representatives at the airport. They checked off our names, advised us which hotel we'd be staying at that night, loaded our luggage onto trucks, put us on busses, and took us to the Sheraton Hotel. In one of the Sheraton's ballrooms they had us complete all the cruise registration paperwork. Those of us who weren't staying at the Sheraton were taken to our hotels. So we wouldn't overwhelm the hotel staff with all the busses arriving at the same time, our bus took us for a tour through the streets of Santiago as the tour guide pointed out different points of interest. We were impressed by how clean the city was and how many parks were located in the downtown area. Many had water features.
Our hotel was located in downtown Santiago. After our lunch Cindy and I decided to do some touring on our own. Our first stop was at the Museum of Natural History. This was located across the street from our hotel. This next photo is titled "I seen it already at the Franklin Institute". This is a quote from our daughter Melanie. When she was 5 years old we took her to see the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC and that is what she said. I guess one guy sitting in a chair looks like any other guy sitting in a chair to a 5 year old. So as soon as we saw the statue of a guy sitting in a chair, we had to include it in our blog!
We wanted to stock up on some Chilean wine to take on the cruise. It took some looking but after walking several blocks in a pedestrian mall, we found a grocery store. We headed back to the hotel with big smiles and our cache of wine. We dropped off the wine and headed out again. Right down the main street from our hotel was Santa Lucia Hill. This is the place where the city of Santiago was founded by the Spanish conquerors in 1541. On the top of the hill is the castle of Hidalgo. We climbed to the top and on the way up I took this photo of Cindy standing under one of the arches leading to the castle.
I think Hidalgo translated must mean place for romantic couples. The park was full of lovers young and old. When we first walked into the park Cindy thought we found the homeless that we had not seen throughout our tour through the city. On closer inspection we realized that they were not homeless but couples that should be at home or maybe in a motel room! That did not deter us from our sightseeing mission. So we charged on to the top of the hill and the castle with a sweeping view of the city.

Our next photo is a large copper sculpture. Copper production is 40% of Chile's GNP and hence they have a copper monument to honor this product. Boy if this thing was in California someone would have chopped it up in the middle of the night and taken it to the recyclers for cash!
Yesterday morning, we were bussed to the port in Valparaiso, during which we had a local guide providing commentary of the area. We traveled through two valleys, one known for fruit growing and the second, for vineyards. When we arrived at the port, there were no lines in the terminal since we had done all of our cruise registration paperwork the day before at the Sheraton. We picked up our room keys and decided to have a local specialty drink, the pisco sour, with Connie and Frank before boarding the ship.

Connie made a last minute wine purchase to take onboard, and off we went up the gangway. We had made it to the ship! Bill and I quickly unpacked and then took a ship tour. After the life jacket drill we went out on the deck to enjoy the beautiful weather as we departed Valparaiso.