Parque Metropolitan

Me at the Japanese garden
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We spent the whole day here. Mind you given that the day starts for this lot no sooner than mid-day, It isn't such a long time.Although it was after 7pm when we got home.

This park is simply amazing. we started the tour with a visit to the japanese gardens where we observed a very tenacious turtle trying to get to it's spot on the top of the rock. Very ambitious attempt and the first ended with being dumped back in the pond. After a while said turtle had quite an audience and finally made it - to a round of applause.

We spent the whole day here

Brave turtle - had to emphasise this story!!
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From there we headed up the hill for refreshments and a wander. This park has the most amazing swimming pools I have ever seen. One has the most spectacular views of the city. For 6000 pesos you can spend the day at the pools. None of this six lane stuff here. The pools are in beautiful settigs withe BBq and lovely trees for shade - believe me you need it here. The day was in the mid 30's.

After the visit to the first pool Nano drove us up to to the top of the road where we could take the tram and the cable car and we could also walk to the top to the spectacular statue of the Virgin mary. There was also a church up here so we had our Christmas service sfter all. The climb was easy but it was just sooooo hot!

Church in the Park
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Had the most amazing refreshment on the way up the path... Mote con Husillio which is a sweet refreshing juice with peaches and cooked barley...sounds really weird but was the most amazingly refreshing drink and I am determined to learn how to make this.

After photo's etc at the summit we headed down to the stalls and the trip in the cable car...straight down to more stalls and then after a wander around we went back up and then headed to the cable car.

After the round trip on the cable car with the most spectacular views it was back to the car and Nano drove us to the other pool...the one with the fantastic view. I would happily spend a day here, and bu the looks of it that was exactly what most people were doing. Why more public pools aren't like this is beyond me.

The Statue of the Virgin Mary lookng over santiago
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home again to Nano's, a light dinner and then they dropped me off back home where i collapsed into bed at about 11pm.

the kids are really not into sightseeing and I decided in the end today to book a city tour tomorrow. we were a bit at a loss as to how to sort this out when Nano had a brilliant idea. We phoned the best hotel in the Lonely Planet Book and asked them who they booked their tours from. Rang them and Hey presto i was on the tour in the morning, being collected at 8am from the Hyatt which was across the road from my apartment. So I tucked myself into bed with my phone alarm set 3 times for the morning....8m is pretty early by South American standards.