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Published: April 14th 2008
Left Regina at 9:00 am on Saturday and arrived in Santiago, Chile on Sunday at 10:30 AM EST.
We cleared customs and found no one at the Alamo counter to help us apply for permits for Argentina. Also found out that we cannot get seats on our LAN flight until 2 hrs before boarding time. Hopefully it will all work out. We will be at the airport for 5:30AM on Tues to ensure we get on our flight to Easter Island.
Taxi Cab ran out of gas half way between the Airport and the Hotel on the freeway. So the cabie gets a tow truck to drive us to the nearest gas station. We finally make it to the hotel and have the cabbie try to scam us out of $130 for the trip. We didn't fall for it and payed him $30.
Many travel guides indicate that it is easy to find help if you only speak english, however we are finding very few people are able to understand what we are trying to ask them. The language barrier is very strong here, but we are getting by. Santiago is a very beautiful city, we will get
to see much more of it tomorrow when we take a city tour.
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james stl james
non-member comment
out of bencina
congrats on not getting scammed by the cabbie. damn taxi drivers give every city a bad name (i read another travelog where an australian paid US$100 for a cab ride plus $20 tip!). i don't know which travel guide you read that told you you'd be fine with just english. everything i've read on chile says the opposite, that english speakers are rare and knowing some spanish is helpful. i'm chilean and i can tell you very few people speak english well enough to help you, despite the fact the almost everyone is taught it at school and that chilean spanish is packed with english words (esp. chilean slang). enjoy the rest of your time in chile and south america. (bencina [like benzine] is what gasoline is called in chile; in argentina it's called nafta). cheers!