Last Day!

The museums were closed on Monday, so this is it. I am bound to violate my travel rule on museums. El Museo de Historia opens at 10. I learn some of what I told you about Valdivia.

By 11am I am in the Precolumbian Art/History Museum. There is a lot of stuff there and I focus on the Chilean artifacts and take a lot of pictures. I will only bore you with one. Remember, I was an anthropology major.

This seems to be a theme of people in the Andes: this guy has an axe in one hand and a head in the other. Things have been rough down here for a long time.

I am out of this museum by 12 and head back to the fish market for another fix of seafood. I go to the same place where the lady restaurant monger greets me with a big smile and a kiss.

I buy the specialty of the house which has the entire ocean worth of species in it. It comes piping hot and is superbuena. I have learned the routine now...get it with a Pisco Sour.

I walk a few extra miles for some gift shopping I had logged in the memory banks on earlier treks, and then to the hotel to check out. But I still have two hours until I go to the airport and I finally figured out where the MAVI Visual Arts and Archeology Museum is: just around the corner! I hit that and then to the GAM Center for a Latin American Folk Art exhibit.

This was very cool and the best part was that all of it is on this link: http://www.mapa.uchile.cl/exposiciones/index.php

I get to the hotel with 30 minutes to spare and take the opportunity to climb to the top of Sta Lucia park. It's higher

than I thought, with many little parks and places to sit along the way. The free guide on Monday told us the hill used to be a pile of garbage and a graveyard, but as the Lastraria neighborhood became more well-to-do, the families decided to do something about the hill and sunk a pile of money into it,

building walkways, stairs and planting all sorts of non-native trees and shrubs. I get carded twice by the security as I go in, passport and all information written down.







This is the view from the top looking down toward my hotel.

And amongst the clouds, a bit of a view of some of the Andes to the east.

I am back at my hotel by 3:50 and the taxi is waiting for me. Time to begin about 20 hours of sitting on my butt in taxis, planes, airports and bathrooms. I go through emigration and get to the gate with two hours to spare. There is a bar there and hanging from the ceiling is this message from God:

What could I do but respond in humble obedience...