After a long day of flying, Sid and I arrived in Santiago late in the evening. We were greeted at the airport by a driver who took us to our hotel. It was already dark, so we didn’t spend too much time trying to check out the views. We basically got to the hotel, ate dinner, and crashed, figuring we would set up our plans the next day.
As we awoke the next morning, we were greeted by amazingly beautiful views out our window. We had no idea how close we were to the Andes and how huge they were! They enveloped the city with majestic peaks all around. We began to look at options for setting our itinerary for the next few days, knowing that we absolutely had to get on top of some of those mountains. I also wanted to visit some nearby beach towns. So, we set up a mountain tour for the next day, and a bike tour of some beautiful beach spots the day after.
The mountain tour was great. We drove up a ridiculous winding road that 
had over 60 hairpin switchbacks going up the mountain. Luckily, neither of us are prone to getting carsick. It took only minutes of driving to get into the mountains and out of the city, and afte a few more minutes, we could no longer even see the city because it was covered by a thick layer of smog. The further we got into the mountains, the harder it was to believe that we were still so close to Santiago, one of the largest cities in the world!
We had a blast taking in the views and seeing some of the wildlife.
Once we got back into town, we explored the city some, visiting a nearby mall and walking around a beautiful park near our hotel.
The next day, we were off on our bike ride! Our tour guides were a father and son team and we had a great time riding with them. Though the day started off rather foggy, which prevented us from seeing some of the sites on the way out, by the afternoon the sun was out and we were able to see the sites we missed on our ride back. The beaches we saw were breathtaking, with steep cliffs meeting blue waters. 
While the views were well worth it, the bike ride was actually extremely challenging. Though we certainly hadn’t been training consistantly, Sid and I considered ourselves in pretty good shape, but this ride really humbled us! Not only were there ridiculous long, steep hills, but we later found out one of our tour guides, the father, was previously a pro racer in Canada, and at one point was ranked third in the country. His son has now started racing professionally in Chile. No wonder we were struggling on the ride! 
The next day, Sid and I were off to the second portion of our honeymoon – southern Chile. Details of our adventures in Punta Arenas and Puerto Natales in the next recap!
