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Another early travel day, well not 4 am early, but still up by 6 so we could make our 11 am flight to Santiago. We did have time for a quick breakfast before we were in the cab at 8.
Travel Tip, if your flying to another country out of Buenos Aires, you do need to allow extra time, getting through immigration is not a quick process. We were fortunate as our hotel concierge made sure we had a taxi at 8 so we had plenty of time to get to the airport (the in city airport), immigration and customs.
Once through security, immigration and custom we still had 90 minutes before our flight. This is only because we got to the airport earlier. If we would arrived 30 minutes later, we would barely have made the flight. We were again flying in premium economy and were seriously disappointed this time. It was not any different than economy from what I could tell. Three seats a cross and knees in my chest. The interesting thing was one side had twice the legroom of the opposite side, and you paid the same price. The seats were very uncomfortable and by the
end my butt was asleep. The plus was there was hardly anyone else in premium economy so I switched to the side with more legroom and we each had a row to ourselves. The experience was the exact opposite of our flight to and from Iguazu. There is just no consistency in what the premium economy experience is, well except the bad food and just water, soda and coffee to drink. “That’s Argentina.”
The flight was good, and flying over the Andes was amazing. They go on forever running north and south of the entire country. Once you start over it takes about 25 minutes to fly over them. Santiago basically is in the foothills of the Andes.
The rental car process was so much easier than in Iguazu, English was spoken, everything was has it should be including the insurance. They are very through with the entire process to ensure you understand. The only extra thing we had to do was make sure we pre-paid for the gas, so we didn’t’ have to worry about filling it up.
Travel Tip, if you are going to rent a car, do not pack heavy, the shuttle bus from the
terminal to the rental car pickup, is not your standard rental car buss, there are steps and no luggage racks. The aisle are very narrow, it is basically a school bus with nicer seats.
The drive in was not to bad, much better than driving in Ireland or the UK, and they drive on the same side of the road as we do. We only got the car for a day trip to the coast, the rest of the time it will sit in the parking structure. It was also less hassle than trying to figure out which taxi was legitimate at the airport. (More on that later.)
Travel Tip, rental cars come with unlimited easypass, and there are a lot of tolls here.
Getting to the hotel was tricky, Google Maps did not know the direct route, so we wound our way in and around the city until we got to the back side of the hotel. It also happened to be a dead end. I left Jerry with the car and went to the front desk to check in. Amazingly where we drove in was also an entrance to the hotel parking garage, so I went
back to the car and drove right into the garage, parked and off we went to check in.
As I type this (Tuesday Morning) I am looking out at the sun rising over the Andes. Santigo is a much pretty city than Buenos Aires. When we were driving in from the airport it reminded me a great deal of Grenoble, France.
Behind schedule as always, we unpacked. We are here for three nights, and a couple of days ago the hotel sent an e-mail with an upgrade offer for a pretty low per night price, so I did it. I thought we would just get a bigger room, what we got looks like the presidential suite. We even have our own solarium complete with hot tub and sauna.
We were starving, so went down to the lobby bar to get a light bite to eat. Meat empanadas and ceviche. The empanadas were good, but so far I am going to give the empanada prize to buenos Aires. It’s all about the crust, then the filling. The ceviche on the other hand, is perhaps the single best thing we have eaten so far on this trip. The flavor
Ceviche
Dish of the Daywas just exploding in your mouth. I also had a couple of glasses of very nice Chilean Sauvignon Blanc, it isn’t Sancerre, but it was very good.
While we enjoyed our snack, we came to the conclusion that we need to make a significant change in how we travel. We always try to pack a few things in to the day we arrive in a new City. This is fine, if we are only there for one night, but when we are here for three nights, we need to keep that first day for getting acclimated, unpacking, getting water and wine for the room etc. Trying to do sightseeing, except maybe the HoHo, just makes it to stressful. With this epiphany, we went back to the room finished unpacking then took a walk around the neighborhood looking for water and wine. Found the water, but the wine seemed really overpriced. There were a couple of bottles in the room so we will just start with that.
One of the things we were going to do was the Iglesia San Francisco (yes a church not a cathedral) turns out it we look right at it from our room window,
so no need to go, we might go inside tomorrow.
Chipe Libre Dinner was at Chipe Libre, it is really known for the Pisco (a liquor drank both in Peru and Chile) but the food is also very good. It is a mix of Peruvian and Chilian food. There is a lot of Peruvian food in Chile, we are gold that Chile doesn’t really have their own cuisine outside of fish and their version of empanadas.
We have been in Santigo less than 8 hours, and the difference in attitude and vibe is 100%!o(MISSING)ut from Buenos Aires. The people are so much happier than in Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires is like being in a Spanish speaking New York and that is not a complement since I do not like New York anymore. I am sure it has a lot to do with a much more stable economy, while the dollar to peso exchange rate is about the same, it never changes. Unlike Argentina, the value of the pesos can change on a daily basis and thy have over 300%!a(MISSING)nnual inflation. It might also help that the Andes are just in your face, how can you
not be in a good mood looking at that every day?
I digress. Dinner was very good. Jerry had a very simply prepared grilled salmon and I had ossobuco. What made both dishes was really the sides. Jerry had a quinoa risotto; I have no idea how they did it but it was very good. I had fettuccine with huancaina sauce (yellow peppers sauce with a touch of heat). The ossobuco was a bit tough, needed about 3 more hours of cooking but it was very flavorful. We started with deep fried avocado. The wine was also excellent a very nice Carmenere, full bodied by not oaky.
We took the metro to and from dinner. When we checked in to the hotel, the guy at the front desk, very friendly and helpful (they even had paper maps) spent about 10 minutes warning us of pick pockets in the squares, on the streets and in the metro. Very kind, but we did live in New York for 7 ½ years, so I think we are pretty versed in dealing with the scum of the earth. Also, let’s not forget they attempted to pick my pocket in Paris, and that
did not go well for them.
That ends day one in Santiago. The dish of the day, in case you haven’t figured it out was definitely the ceviche, I knew it the moment I took the first bite. Tomorrow is Santiago in one day.
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Sharon Hughson
non-member comment
WOW
The Andes are incredible, for sure. I’m glad you entered a more relaxed culture. What was in the ceviche (dish of the day)? It looked like shrimp.