Santa Lucía

Today Matt and I toured and hiked the Santa Lucía fortress here in Santiago. The fortress was built by the Spanish who came to Chile. (We all know there were already indigenous people living in Chile, but when the Spanish explored Santiago, they claimed it for their own.)

This post will be mostly pictures.

Here we are heading towards the fortress. There was a beautiful garden with lots of people making out in public. That part was kind of unusual.

We entered the fortress here, and we signed in where the dogs are sleeping.

The bottom part is yellow with white trim. It's very beautiful.

We stopped by the "magic fountain."

Pretty, old tiles

People had declared their love all over the stones.

I made friends with this cool cat.

It was nice to see some indigenous art juxtaposed with the fortress.

People continued declaring their love... by carving into this sturdy cactus.

The staircases were old and treacherous, but neat to climb.

Mr. Pedro de Valdivia himself! Pedro de Valdivia was a Spaniard who traveled with a fleet to South America. He is noted as the founder of Santiago, and of Chile as a whole.

Peeking through at the city

SMOG!

More sappy graffiti

There was a mote con huesillos vendor in one area of the fortress. I posted about this drink earlier on the blog.

Matt with his mote con huesillos.

Fortress selfies

Matt found Darwin Garden; there were several monuments to Charles Darwin, which seemed a little out of place, but cool nonetheless.

A church at the top

A poem about faith

A suuuuuper steep stone staircase

And at the bottom there was a building whose walls were mirrored!

We had a really nice time exploring the fortress. It's definitely someplace I'd like to take people when they come visit. 

Thursday and Friday are the Chilean independence holidays, so expect more photos and posts soon!