In less than four hours drive, down, down, down, you arrive at the Pacific Coast of Chile. Between Santiago and Valparaiso, the wide tollway is similar to Colorado's I-70 (except for the tolls). It's a beautiful drive through the vineyard valley of Casablanca, home to numerous wineries including Veramonte. We passed fruit and vegetable stands, communities of homes with the traditional corrugated metal roofs and gardens filled with orange trees.
We arrived in Viña del Mar and picked the Hotel O'Higgins simply because we could pull the car in and park it in the congested downtown! The hotel is from the 1930's with an brass handled, iron-gate elevator operated by an elevator man.
Nearby were long stretches of beach along the ocean with boardwalks, arts and craft stands, restaurants, a huge casino/hotel and horse-drawn carriages. Several shopping malls offer the major stores like Polo, Benetton, etc. and a large grocery store where we admired fresh fruits, veggies, fresh meats and fish.
Beautiful coastal drive up through Zapallar to Papudo, other resort towns with beautiful stretches of beach broken by rocky outcroppings and above large sand dunes. Rainy, misty mornings gave way to clear sunny afternoons.
On the last night, we changed hotels to stay "in" the ocean. Cap Ducal was also built in the 1930's and resembles a ship. Same type of elevator, but this one was smaller and not staffed. All the rooms have ocean views, because you are literally in the ocean, the waves crashing under the huge window. The dining room had terrific ocean views all around.
This was a great way to recuperate from a ski trip!
Other stuff that happened:
- We left some of our luggage and skiis at the hotel in Santiago, and discovered that Frank needed underwear. So, we found a department store and to buy anything with our credit card, you have to show your passport. Oddly, once we saw the credit card bill, we discovered that the "passport" underwear cost only $2.30 USD!
- The decision to return the rental car to the hotel or the airport was an "Amazing Race roadblock" - lugging the skiis presented a problem (they wouldn't fit in the rental car), leaving them at the hotel meant arranging transport to the airport from the hotel which had to be done in Spanish on the phone; returning the rental car to the airport meant meeting someone at an unknown spot in an unfamiliar airport.