Last day in Santiago

Through Trip Advisor and Viator (after a fair amount of hassle) we went by a private car to the Maipo Basin where there is a dam and huge lake which supplies about 80% of Santiago (7 million population). It was about a 2 1/2 hr drive there. We had an excellent English speaking guide called Cristian who was very knowledgable about Chilean politics. He had been born about 100 KM north of Santiago where his father was a mining engineer. Mining is a huge part of the Chilean economy - particularly mining for copper. Agriculture, particularly wine growing is another major part of the economy. 

We ascended up a gorge to the valley of the reservoir and were surrounded by the Andes mountains. Fortunately most of the smoke haze had dissipated up at altitude. To begin with the day was pleasant - about 25C but on the way home our driver and guide’s vehicles air conditioning stopped working and the temperature was up to 33C.

Christen was an excellent guide. He did have a somewhat right wing view of the political situation in Chile. He did not think they would be successful in revising the constitution and so Chile is still living with the Constitution, with some amendments.

that was put in place during the military dictatorship of  Augusto Pinochet.