We were very happy to be on our way to Santiago the day after the unsettling news on our last day in Valparaiso. Our friends were incredibly generous and lent us their apartment in the ritzy Las Condes neighborhood while they were out of town. After spending a week in slightly uncomfortable accommodations in Easter island, and then feeling unsafe in Valparaiso, we were incredibly happy to be in a place that was clean, comfortable, secure, etc. Because of this, along with a few days of clouds/rain, we didn't spend a lot of time exploring Santiago. We did a lot of walking to find good coffee and Ryan caught up on work.
The really cool thing about Santiago is that the Andes mountains feel SO CLOSE. There is a hill in town with a funicular to bring you to the top for sweet views of the city, but we never had a crystal clear day to go ourselves.
Las Condes, where we were staying, was so clean! Unlike in Argentina, drivers actually gave pedestrians the right of way, and there was far less dog poop everywhere. It actually felt the most American-like place we’d been to in South America. Apparently it feels so similar to New York City that it was given the nickname of “Sanhattan.” I’ll let a New Yorker decide the validity of that one, but seemed reasonably true to me 😜
Unfortunately for us, Chile’s economy is much better than Argentina’s, so food costs were on par for any major American city. In order to save, we did a lot of cooking at the apartment.
On our last full day in Santiago, we went wine tasting! Chile has some of the best wines in the world and we couldn’t pass up the chance to try some for ourselves. Sadly, we are both extreme lightweights when it comes to alcohol consumption so we’re limited to doing one tasting at a time. I would highly recommend checking Groupon for any deals- we were able to get the Premium tour for half price at one of the oldest wineries in the country. We also got lucky being the only English speakers doing a wine tasting at 11am- so we got our own private tour! There were maybe 15-20 Brazilians in the Portuguese tour 😂
We spent almost 2.5 hours here. Needless to say, we spent the rest of the day recovering and hydrating back at the apartment.
DWNTGB (Do We Need To Go Back) Rating
Ryan - 
I’ll start off by saying I had a fantastic time in Santiago. The truth is that I wouldn’t mind going back and spending more time exploring the city. However, I would describe that feeling as “sure, if I happen to end up there again I wouldn’t mind”, as opposed to feeling like I can’t wait to go back. If I don’t make it back to Santiago anytime soon, I won’t be too disappointed.
Mollie -
I agree with Ryan on this one. We had fun and the city was clean and nice, but I didn’t fall in love with it and I’m not itching to go back anytime soon.