Chile, part 3

We saw a lot on our last day in Chile. We woke up at the lovely Casona at Vina Matetic near San Antonio. Mom took some pictures of the grounds as the sun was coming up.



Such a beautiful place!



After breakfast we hit the road for a day of driving along some of the beautiful coastal towns.



We first headed to the historic port city of Valparaiso, where we toured the city's big vegetable market.







We then headed up to the top of one of the city's many hills for a view of the harbor.



Carter was much more interested in the view than in having his picture taken.





We rode up another hill on an antique funicular. These are all over the city and have been in operation for a century.





Carter really liked this!



We walked around the city a bit.









After exploring Valparaiso we drove up the coast to Vina del Mar, a beach community. The coast is just gorgeous!







There were lots of sea lions lounging on the rocks.



We stopped for a snack of empanadas, which Carter enjoyed a lot more than we expected!



We then had a very scenic drive up the coast to a beautiful cove where we had lunch.







Carter slept through most of lunch, which was not a bad thing, actually.



He woke up just before it was time to go, so he didn't miss the entire stop.





At last it was time to head to the airport. Carter is getting tickled by Nana here.



We got to the airport, checked all of our stuff (including all the boxes of wine we'd bought), and said goodbye to Chile. The flight started off fairly well.



Unfortunately, Mom got sick overnight, apparently having gotten food poisoning from her meal on the airplane. That made the trip home very rough for her, and it was a few days until she was back on her feet. :-(

Even though the ending was less than fun, it was a great trip overall. We first went to Chile on our honeymoon in 1995, and we've been back so many times we've lost count. Even Carter has been twice! It was really lovely to get the chance to share such a wonderful place with Mom, and I know Carter really enjoyed getting to spend that time with his Nana. :-)

I have a lot of pictures from the last month to post, and I hope to get some posted over the weekend. Now that it's almost October, I hope I can post about September. ;-)