Welcome to Santiago, take your jewelry off!

Luck started going our way early on in the trip.

While making our way to the second leg of the flight to Santiago, we stumbled across some Texas relatives of the chicken. After a warm reunion (and a heart-felt goodbye) we boarded our flight to Santiago.

Once in Chile (and at our hotel), we discovered that NCL had a small hospitality desk setup at the hotel. We were able to sign up for an afternoon tour as well as direct transportation to the pier the following day. So we quickly cleaned up and got onto a bus for a city tour of Santiago. One of our directives was to take all of our jewelry off & leave it at the hotel.

One of the most interesting stops was in the heart of a market. In the large square stood a tree (sponsored by Coke – what’s up with that?). It was a bit wrong seeing this huge Christmas tree decorated with logos standing in front of one of the larger cathedrals. It seemed like half of Santiago (about 3 million for those of you keeping score at home) was there all at the same time.

Off the beaten path, our guide negotiated a short tour of a local armory. Afterwards, the captain asked for a group photo so he could document the tour for his duty logs.

The tour ended with a funicular trip up to the top of San Cristobal, which gave us some spectacular views of the city.

For tomorrow? An early bus ride to the pier in Valparaiso and our first day of the cruise.