Valparaíso y Santiago, Chile

We arrived early on Sunday morning March 7 to the city of Valparaiso, Chile. It was still dark, but the hillsides around the bay were twinkling with all the lights from the city. The cargo port was well lit and very busy unloading container freight. Since the earthquake, the port of Concepcion had been closed and all goods and equipment was coming into Valparaiso.

We were scheduled to depart for our tour of Santiago at 7:15. We disembarked on time and were met by the agricultural inspectors and their fruit and vegetable sniffing dogs. Chile is very serious about not bringing into the country any forbidden fruit, vegetable and animal products. We took a quick shuttle bus and got to our loading point for the tour bus.

The drive to Santiago brought to light the contrasting and dramatic living standards among the Chilean people. Clearly there is a growing middle class, as evidenced by the many single family home communities being developed in the country side. The older, wealthy communities still exist and are populated by the people who own the businesses or are among the successful professional class made up of doctors, lawyers and professors, etc. There still is quite evident a poverty level class of workers, whose homes are poorly constructed in what must be described as “shanty towns.”

After leaving Valparaiso’s suburbs we traveled over a well paved series of highways. The many vineyards presented a beautiful sight. Lush green grape vines were everywhere in the valleys along the way. Not only is Chile, one of the worlds largest fruit producers, but its wine making industry is huge. All along this trip we have been sampling and savoring the wines of Chile and Argentina. They are excellent and relatively inexpensive.