Chile 2016: Days 14 and 15 (March 4 and 5) - Travels from Valparaíso to Santiago

We checked out of our Valparaíso Airbnb apartment at around 12:30 pm and got some breakfast at a healthy looking cafe on the way to the bus station. Sof and I both ordered an omelette pancake thing that had carrots and chard inside a flat egg pancake. We found that we like melon juice, so we got that along with it.

Carrots and chard wrapped in an egg pancake thing, which was delicious but filling!

After lunch, we took the 2 hour bus ride to Santiago's Alameda bus station. From there (apparently called the Estación Central in the metro part), we took our first Santiago metro from Line 1 to Line 5, which took us near our Santiago Airbnb apartment. The metro is more like a subway in that it's underground and has color-coded lines just like a typical subway system.

Map of Santiago's metro system. So far we've only ridden Lines 1 (red) and 5 (green).

Interestingly, there does not appear to be a Line 3 (just 1, 2, 4, 4a, and 5), but we passed a stop that looked like it would be part of a new Line 3. Exciting!

A painting Sof likes on a wall near the metro stop closest to our Airbnb apartment.

We dropped our belongings off at the apartment (which is the nicest we've stayed in so far, with a complete kitchen and our own washing machine) and went to dinner at Les Assassins. Apparently, it is a fairly well-known, well-ranked French restaurant that specializes in steak au poivre. It sounded like the owner lived in France for several years before coming back to Santiago to open his restaurant.

The front of the menu of Les Assassins.

The restaurant, with the owner walking by on the right.

Sof's favorite Pisco Sour so far.

I ordered the steak au poivre, which was very good!

Sof ordered a fillet which was also very good!

We were pretty tired after the filling dinner and pisco sours, so we turned in for the night after that. The next morning, we headed back toward the metro station and stopped by a cafe near the metro station for lunch.

I got chicken, and Sof got lasagna. We both drank strawberry juice!

We then took the Line 5 metro to the Quinta Normal, which is a large park that has fountains, trees, and a little lake where people could peddle small boats around. We went to the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos (Museum of Memory and Human Rights), which was dedicated to the victims of the Coup of September 11, 1973 when the Chilean military overthrew the government headed by President Salvador Allende.

The centralish part of Quinta Normal.

Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos.

After the museum, we walked around the park a bit and then started walking east back toward the apartment. We ate in a Chinese restaurant (just to see what the Chilean perception of Chinese food was like), but it wasn't particularly great, especially since it was a bit more expensive than most places around.

On the way back, we passed the previous Congreso building (before Congress was disbanded and then resumed in Valparaíso years later), the national mail building, and the Plaza de Armas, the main central plaza of Santiago.