Well, we made it all the way around the world! From Europe to Africa to the Middle East to Asia and finally South America. Buenos Dias Santiago, Chile! We've never been to South America so we are super excited!

We only spent 3 days in Santiago and used some hotel points at the W. That king size bed was much needed for our flight recovery and jet lag! We accidentally took a 5 hour nap when we arrived and woke up at 10pm. We ventured out to find food. We almost had to settle for McDonalds as most everything was closing at 11 but then we found a pizza place that was open until midnight. The restaurant manager sat down and chatted with us while we shared a pizza and a bottle of wine. We tried our first Carmenere, a popular wine found in Chile, and it was delicious! We have really been missing wine since leaving Europe back in October!

We headed out early to explore the next day. The city is super relaxed and super nice for walking around. There are some good museums, some interesting buildings and tons of neighborhood pockets to explore. We saw most of the main area in the morning, the Centro and Plaza de Armas. The city expands from there.

We went back to our hotel to take advantage of the rooftop pool in the afternoon. We ended up taking a nap again at 5pm (jet lag) and I thought I set an alarm but alas, it didn't go off and we woke up at 9pm. We tried to stay up a bit later and ended up eating some granola bars and sharing a bottle of wine while watching the news in our room. We went back to bed and were both wide awake at 4am... oops. We watched some TV and went back to bed at 6. Somehow we slept 4 1/2 more hours so hopefully that kicked the jet lag! Santiago is a great place for jet lag and relaxing. We didn't feel pressured to be out all day.

Later that day, we walked around the artsy area, took in all the street art, ate some lunch (avocado toast, gazpacho, and fresh squeezed lemonade) and then relaxed in a park. We shared another bottle of Carmenere wine and some empanadas at a cute sidewalk cafe and then walked over to the Barrio Bella Vista neighborhood, which is filled with tons of nightlife.

Unfortunately, we didn't have enough points for a 3rd night at the W Hotel, so we opted for a cheap hostel for our last night in Santiago. Our mistake.... we should have checked to make sure it wasn't a party hostel! We went to bed at 11:30 and were the only ones back in our room! Blake claims he barely slept the whole night. I think I got a few hours to start but then we were both wide awake listening to people come and go, partying in the lobby, music in the street and eventually loud snoring from multiple people in our room. It was the worst hostel experience I've ever had. We're pretty sure we heard a guy throw up in his bed and there was vomit in the shower when I got up to go to the bathroom. The room didn't have air conditioning or a fan and got extremely hot. We had to get out of there! We were gone by 6am, before the sun was even up. We went to the bus station and got the first bus we could that would take us to Valparaiso.

Hostels can be great but if you're like us, you should choose the non party ones so you can actually get some sleep. Oh well, Valpo here we come!

Jet Lag, Chilean Wine, and The Worst Hostel