Hola Santiago!

Santiago, Chile -- March 15-16 -- Day 1-2

Although technically, when we landed in Santiago yesterday -- it was still the same day as when we left Auckland (just 5 hours earlier) -- it sure felt like the next day.  I’m glad I’m little when it comes to fitting on a plane, but it sure doesn’t seem to help me sleep.  Arrgh. The eleven hour flight was easier to bear as we were on a brand new LATAM Airlines 777 Dreamliner.  This meant we each had a screen to keep us occupied, movies, TV shows and games.  Kylie was with me and two rows up were Meg and Dex.  The big movie hit, apparently was Trolls.

I passed on the movie deciding instead to try to work out a schedule for the next six weeks.  I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have some sort of itinerary since we were flying over 6000 miles to the final continent of the trip, South America.  As usual, it’s easy for your eyes to be much bigger than your wallet.  Items on the list included Rio, Iguazu Falls, Patagonia and Torres del Paine National Park, Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni salt flats and Lake Titicaca, the Inca Trail, and the Galapagos Islands. We’d only manage all of those destinations with a half dozen flights and excellent planning -- not our strong point.  In any event, I tramped off the plane the next morning … er the same afternoon, with three items on the immediate to do list: figure out if we could still book a cruise in the Galapagos and book it (cost be damned), see if any Inca Trail permits were still to be had, and finally double check campground in Torres del Paine.

Once again we went through the new arrival hurdles, customs, baggage, money.  Unlike Australia and New Zealand, as we emerged from the terminal, there were dozens of men outside the terminal anxious to give us a taxi ride.  It was a pleasantly warm, dry day. In the distance, through the thick smog, we could just make out huge mountains, some with patches of  late summer snow. It reminded us a bit of arid Arizona. In fact, in the far north of Chile is the Atacama desert, advertised as the driest place on earth.

We were all beat and tempers were a little short, so we opted for an Uber for the 30 minute drive into downtown. Ten minutes into the Uber ride, Kylie remembered she’d left her small green Emirates Air bag on the ground in the parking lot which contained, among other things, her Kindle and drawing books.  We turned around and headed back. When we arrived, we scanned the parking lot finding nothing outside, which was the exact instant that Kylie found the bag under the back seat of the car! Doh!  Oh well. Forty minutes later, we were settled into our small two room apartment on the twelfth floor, right in the heart of town.

We made it. Checking in.

For dinner on our first night, we chose a nearby restaurant, El Txoko Alaves.  The downtown, with small side streets and little restaurants, had a casual friendly feel. Despite our terrible Spanish, the attendants were incredibly kind. The woman at the desk was very nice helping Dex and Kylie with rudimentary greetings -- it’s been a long time since we used our Spanish, last May in Spain, in fact. Meg and I also tested our first Pisco Sour, a specialty here made with wine brandy, egg whites, and lime.

Today, Thursday, was not very eventful. None of us slept well due to the eight hour time change, the biggest of the trip. A scratchy throat and a large glass of wine may also have contributed to my general lethargy.

After a half dozen emails we finally settled on a Galapagos tour.  Although we were most focused on the dates, price and itinerary, the tour operators always seemed to be most interested in which boat we had chosen.  To me that seemed a small detail that they should provide.  In the end, with Skype and the help of Cristina in Quito, we were presented with eight different options for eight-day tours, all with itineraries including the western islands.  Weighing the alternatives, we finally selected the Tip Top II catamaran on April 14-21st.  With the “special” last minute pricing, we’ll get away with only exceeding our daily budget by 4X!  Oh well. I had skipped the Galapagos twenty years ago because it was too expensive, so something tells me if I wait another twenty years the price probably won’t be any less.  

To stretch our legs tonight, we took a short walk around the downtown area. We passed by an interesting restaurant, Pica de Clinton, which was renamed after Bill Clinton unexpectedly wandered in for a Coke while in town for the Summit of the America's talk years ago. Tonight's food choice for us was a tiny Indian food place right across the street from our large apartment complex. Bon Appetit!