We arrived in Santiago’s airport late at night and took a taxi to our neighborhood in the posh Las Condes area of the city. Even though it was dark we could tell that Santiago was different.
Santiago, or at least where we were in Santiago, was unlike any other place we’d been in South America. It was a modern metropolis complete with amazing parks, trendy restaurants, commuters, those shared scooters littering the sidewalks, high rises, and a huge mall oozing with American capitalism. Our friends that live there call it “South America Light”.
After a couple of weeks of fast travel, which of course coincided with some pretty bad stomach issues and even some fainting, Santiago offered us a few things:
- A nice, modern apartment with good internet, laundry and great views of the area.
2. Office commuters, complete with deadened facial expressions, who reminded us that while travel can be tough, it beats the alternative.
3. A friend from college! Friends from college are great. There are no inhibitions because we both know exactly how immature and stupid each other is. No need to pretend to be an adult, I know who you really are! We met a friend from college who’d been living in Santiago for 9 years and hung out with him, his wife and child several times and a had a great time catching up. He even had the honors of shaving C’s travel beard! And for that, if nothing else, we are all eternally grateful.
4. Santiago allowed us to chill out. We walked around the city and the kids loved playing at the local park, but we did none of the touristy or cultural things on offer in the city and we make no apologies for that!
We ate at PF Changs…twice, had Dunkin’ Donuts and ate at Chili’s, and even had Cinnabon for the first time in at least 25 years (was it that good back then? If so, why did we go so long without eating it again?!) . Mostly, however, we lazed around and lived a non-travel life for a week.
Oh Santiago! We thank you. We didn’t take you up on all you had to offer but we didn’t need to. We might be back (we WILL be back if we can’t find Cinnabon in the malls of the US!). For now though, it’s on to Brazil.
But first, if you read this far, I will give you what you all wanted from this post anyway. Pictures of the travel beard. Goodbye travel beard. If we never see you again, it will be too soon!
Dangers of a beard….. 
The start…totally ungroomed 
Now that is a beard 
Handlebar mustache 
Burt Reynolds 
And, finally, back to (almost) normal
