Distance to Date: 3457 km , 2143 miles

Besides the great fun and adventure of traversing the continents, we wanted to visit schools for the blind and meet with various organizations that support the blind community. We had concentrated on the ride itself up until now to work out all the kinks of international cycle touring. Santiago is our first stop to engage with the blind communities in South America.

We spent the first couple of days relaxing and enjoying Santiago life. Today we were guests of honor at an event hosted by the Servicio Nacional de la Discapacidad (SENADIS) where we received medals in recognition of our journey and our effort to raise awareness. Over the next two days, we will visit schools for the blind in Santiago and we will update with photos. (Please note that we may not be able to capture everything since we will be busy engaging with the students. We'll do what we can to share our experiences with them!)

If you haven't already, please take a second to "like" our Facebook page and ask your friends to do so as well. Our goal is to raise awareness about the abilities of the visually impaired, and this is a simple way to help achieve that goal.

Santiago. This will be the tallest building in South America once it's completed. Santiago's skyline. We are lucky that Whiskey lets us stay with him. He watches over the progress of the building. Whiskey and Tauru. We head to Vega Central for lunch. We meant to dine at Tia Ruth's, but it seems we missed it by a couple of tables. Yeah, food is food and Tauru will eat wherever. Cazuela de Vacuno, a Chilean dish that's kind of like a noodle soup with a chunk of cow bone (how's that for "fancy write-up"). We visit the market afterwards. The Vega Central market is the biggest in Santiago with thousands of local vendors. Dried fruits and nuts... More... More... Tauru tries to get lucky with these slot machine. More... More. Getting hungry. Back to the restaurant area? Perhaps another day. We'll come back to dine at Tia Ruth's next time. Today (Sunday May 13th), we were recognized by a blind organization in Santiago. They take us to the top of Cerro San Cristobal in the heart of Santiago. The sprawling metropolis is somewhere down below. People are curious about our project and can't believe it. The film crew that is making a documentary about our journey arrives from the States and starts capturing the event. Christi gets ready for the event. (Unfortunately, we were the guests of honor and so too busy to take photos. SENADIS (National Service of the Disability) hosted the even and presented us with medals of recognition for our efforts.) The bike wanted to get into scene, too. Chile's Channel 13 (national news) interview us. (Photo: Frank Paul Perez Copyright 2012)