Awesome day with Matias (we need to form a club) up the coast to some smaller beach towns and lovely views and hikes to be out in nature. 10/10 would recomment Matias for your guiding needs if ever in Valparaíso or Santiago.
Logistics
Tour was set to start at 7am, but it was also a new segment, so they had given us departure groups to leave the ship and mine was at 9:30. After a quick conversation with the front desk yesterday, they said since I wasn’t actually debarking, I could leave whenever, so I woke up at 6:30 and went to check when people were getting off (looking over at deck 5). To my surprise, people were already leaving, so I went and grabbed my stuff and went down to leave early.
The Tour
Headed up the coast for about an hour and a half north through a couple smaller towns and watched the coast line as we went along. Lovely weather and nice and cool all day. Matias explained that when it’s really hot the day before, the first part of the next day is usually cool and foggy as all the humidity catches up and cycles until around noon the next day.
We ended up arriving at the first beach to go on a quick 20 minute hike up the coast to go closer(ish) to the penguins. We got there nice and early, so we basically were the only people on the beach, got to watch a lot of wildlife and see a lot of stuff from the morning tides without human intervention.
We made it to the penguins after a nice relaxing hike there on well carved out trails.
We then continued onto a really nice secluded beach that you can really only get to through the trail (or renting or owning one of the beach houses nearby).
As we hiked there was a lot of beautiful views. It was also really sad to see that there were a ton of trash that people had just thrown around, and then people carving things into rocks and plants :(. I swear I didn’t write it, but there’s a Matti out there apparently somewhere that does this kind of garbage…for shame.
From the beach, there was a small 10 minute trail up the coast to see the views before it got cut off from some private beach houses that decided to cut off the coastal trail that used to connect all the beach towns.
After returning to the beach, we then drove up further past the coast to the next town (the one cut off by the selfish private beach house people). Here there was a lovely little protected area where a hike up the hill past all sort of flowers and birds around.
We then headed down the hill to go get some empanada’s for lunch. On the way, we saw a flock of vultures, and upon closer look, it appeared to be a vulture on a dead sea lion…the circle of life. Tons of shells in a pile though…gigantic shells, which apparently are from the restaurant nearby with all the seafood. The empanada was absolutely delicious. I think the one I had in Argentina was just too thick with the dough, but this one was flaky and delicious.
We then headed back to the port, and got back in time for the ship to leave port. Highly recommend the tour, and really enjoyed getting out of the city. If anyone is ever in the city, highly recommend looking up Matias. You can find him on ToursByLocals or book direct through his WhatsApp (DM me for his contact info).
Back onboard
Back onboard the ship, I watched the city for a bit from the top deck and enjoyed the views and the sun which true to form, had come out around noon.
Food
After resting for a couple hours and decompressing, went down for dinner. Tomato bisque, chicken alfredo and special for today, the coffee ice cream (delicious).
Vibe Check
5 parts joy
Feedback
Leave a comment or question if you have any thoughts! Anything you want to know about as we go around the world? Any things you want to share as feedback, or any images that particularly spoke to you. I’ll try to read all of them as time permits!
Matti 
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