Airport and Adventures

Hello Everyone,

Well it has been a few days since we last posted, so here it goes. On Friday, Janet and I had to get up around 4am because we had to travel to Santiago, the capital of Chile. It takes about 1 hour and 30 minutes by bus to get there. We first had to get in a cab and take it to the bus terminal because it was to dangerous to walk across town from where we are staying to the bus terminal at 5am. Our Bus left the terminal at 5:20, and we were on our way to pick up Kareem in Santiago.

We arrived in Santiago sometime before the sun came up, and then attempted to find a clock to see what time it was. In Chile, for some reason they dont have any clocks anywhere. We figured out what time it was, and realized that Kareem's plane was going to be landing in about 30 minutes. So, now its about 8:00am, and finally Janet and I can see Kareem coming down the airport to baggage claim.(we are watching him from two floors up, and cant get to him, because baggage claim is seperated.) It was extremely easy to spot Kareem out of all of the people because he decided to wear shorts and short sleeves to Chile. (It was 3 degrees Celcius out that day, 0 degrees Celcius is freezing). Anyways, we met up with Kareem and put on some clothes and the three of us were off to ValParaiso.

Saturday: Saturday was a big day, we got up around 8am, and we decided that we would take a train from ValParaiso to a small city called Limache. (ValParaiso is the third Largest City in Chile, with 2/3 of all of Chile's population living in Santiago.) The Train left ValParaiso, and about 2 hours later we ended up in Limache. (We headed East from ValParaiso to get to Limache). Limache was a friendly town that didnt appear to be very large. After arriving and figuring out where we were (which we still dont know), we decided to take a 30 minute bus ride from Limache to an even more remote town called Olmue, to look for the National Park La Campana, which contains the highest mountains in the coastal region. We wanted to be explorers, so we decided that we would hike one of the tallest mountains in this region: Cerro La Campana (Charles Darwin Climbed this mountain in 1834).

Now this was pretty cool, lets recap, we took a train two hours East of ValParaiso, to a remote town called Limanche, then we took a bus for another 30 minutes to Olmue, an even more remote town, then we decided we would hike this giant mountain. Please remember, we dont speak much spanish, we dont know exactly where we are, and we damn sure are not experienced hikers. But yet, we did it anyway and it was worth every minute of the four hours we hiked. We never did make it to the top, or even close, but we did get to explore a very unique part of Chile, that not many people get to do.

All in All, it was an awesome adventure, and look tomorrow for all of the great pictures of Kareem, Janet and Steve being explorers on Cerro La Campana (A Chilean National Park).

Have a great evening.
Buenos Noche.