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Published: January 10th 2013
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SANTIAGO
AIRPORT FROM MY HOTEL Well, this first day has been a good adventure, some learning experiences, but a rewarding day. I left Sarasota at 1:30 pm on Monday to get to the Tampa airport. Everything went smoothly until the driver found out that I275 was closed at the airport exit because of a serious traffic accident. I down loaded an app to assist us and he decided to take an alternative route. Good idea! We got to the airport as scheduled in spite of the I275 blockage, The Tampa to Atlanta flight went smoothly but we were delayed for 20 minutes waiting for the pilots from a Minneapolis to Tampa flight. We still got to Atlanta on time but sat on the tarmac for twenty minutes waiting for a plane to leave our gate. All turned out OK, but I had to get to Terminal E from Terminal A in about ten minutes. Made it! I had economy select seating for the first time and it was worth it. The flight started out with a drunk first class passenger being ejected with some mild drama, but we got started almost on time. The flight was very smooth, the flight crew was very professional and cordial,
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HOLIDAY INN FROM AIRPORT the meals were fine for airline standards. There were three movies (I didn’t try to watch them, I tried to sleep-more like a series of naps). We arrived in Santiago pretty close to schedule (9:30 am, 7:30 am EST). It took about an hour and a half to clear customs and I was on my way.
My hotel, a Holiday Inn, was literally only steps away from the terminal. If you’re ever in Santiago for only a night, I strongly recommend this hotel. It is, however about 12 km from downtown, so if you were spending several nights here, consider a downtown hotel. I took a taxi from the airport to Plaza de Armas where I boarded the Turistik open top hop on/hop off tour bus. It presented a great opportunity to see the city and its neighborhoods. I was very impressed! Santiago is a big city, 6,500,000 inhabitants, and like most big cities, traffic is an issue. It is remarkably clean for a big city and I was very comfortable in the neighborhoods I was in. However, I learned (or relearned) a couple of lessons: never leave your hotel without its name address and phone number in your
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OLD AND NEW possession and, if you travel to countries where English is not known as a second language, you better have a basic knowledge of their language.
In my naiveté I assumed that most persons in the tourist industry would be conversant in basic English. Not true in Santiago! I had a bilingual man at the airport help me get a cab downtown to take the tour, but coming back to the hotel was an adventure. I hailed a cab and asked the driver how much he would charge me to get to the Holiday Inn at the airport. He said 10,000. Chilean pesos ( about $20.00) and I agreed. It turned out he didn’t understand English at all, he had no GPS, no air conditioning (it was 39.9 C), and didn’t know where he was going. At one stop signal, he called across to another cab driver for directions. I was very relieved to see the road signs to the aeroporto and I think he was too. I got into the air conditioned bar and had a few Chilean beers (very good) and dinner at the bar. I met several people that are in town to go on the same
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POLICE ON HORSE AND FOOT cruise.
Tomorrow is another day!
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Elly
non-member comment
Sounds like compared to how international flights can go, yours was pretty good. Looking forward to seeing all the pictures of your adventure. Good Luck. E