Chile & Antarctica, Day 5: A Pisco Sour Farewell

We'd come back to the apartment the previous night pretty exhausted, so we didn't put a lot of thought into our next day's plans. Which led to a bit of a mad scramble this morning as were trying to coordinate our check-out time, transfer to the airport (actually, the Holiday Inn at the airport), and trying to squeeze in one last meet-up with Catalina.  Every time we thought we had a plan, we realized how logistically difficult it actually was...like we almost lugged our luggage to the Metro and then would've transferred to a bus to make it to Catalina's to spend more time with her, but then we realized what a pain in the a$$ it would have been to carry all of our bags all that distance. It's enough of a pain just while we're in the airports. :-P

We were pushing for as late of a check-out that the apartment owner and manager would allow, but they weren't on the same page. After much back and forth, we finally confirmed that we could leave our luggage in the room until 2:00. We sent one last hurried message to Catalina to see if she could meet us at 1:00 at Emporio la Rosa, and then we were off to find breakfast.  It's a pain not having a cell phone in a foreign country - we could only communicate where we had wi-fi!

We stopped at a cute little cafe for a quick breakfast before heading back to Patio Bellavista for some last-stop shopping in Santiago.

We made it back to Emporio la Rosa by our designated time, but we weren't sure if Catalina would be able to make it since we'd left the apartment and didn't have access to any communications. But she made it! We tried a couple more flavors of Emporio's world famous ice cream, although I can't remember which ones they were now, and then the three of us walked around the park until it was time to start heading back to the apartment.

Here is where our rudimentary Spanish was really put to the test...and we failed, lol. Alejandra, the apartment manager, was cleaning the apartment as planned. We had arranged a taxi with her, so she was confirming all of that information and attempting conversation. We tried our best to respond, but eventually resorted to translating messages on our phones and passing them back and forth.

Back at our beloved airport Holiday Inn with this really cool feature in the middle...

we got checked in and then walked over to the airport to see what kind of shopping they had there.

Airport/Holiday Inn - can't beat that kind of convenience!

We were also on the look-out for food, but didn't find anything terribly appealing at the airport.

So, we decided to go to the Holiday Inn restaurant where we filled up on this tasty cheese plate with a side of Papas Fritas.

And I tried a Pisco Sour, a traditional Chilean cocktail.

Francisco joined me with a Strawberry Mojito, and we enjoyed our drinks so much that we even decided to order a couple more (Mango Sour and mojito) to be delivered to the room.

Wrapping up our last day in Santiago in style - even if we were stuck at the airport Holiday Inn!