Goodbye Bariloche! Hello Chile!

After 2.5 very beautiful weeks, it was time for us to head out of Bariloche.  We relaxed on the beach and packed for our trip on our last day before a great dinner at La Morilla, our favorite local restaurant.  We had fantastic steak and venison.... I already miss the abundance of quality, inexpensive meat from Argentina... mmmmm...

Our travel day to Santiago, Chile was uneventful.  Lots of waiting, a few cab rides, and an after dark arrival brought us into Chile.

The next day we headed out on a walking tour of the sights and sounds of Chile. which started at the impressive La Moneda palace where the President works.  Here we started to learn about recent Chilean history.  The military performed a very violent coup against the communist leadership in 1973 and then formed a repressive, human-rights-violating government until approximately 1990 when the people voted for a more democratic government.  Chile (and other places like Argentina, Hungary, and the Czech Republic) have reminded us how so many places in the world have very volatile recent (current?) histories and how lucky we've been to live in a stable country.

We continued to explore the city which felt very modern and eventually made it to famous poet, Pablo Neruda's house.

We had a nice dinner with some live music and headed home to prep for our adventure day-trip from Santiago to the Andes on Friday.