A flying visit to Santiago

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Santiago, Chile

Last stop in South America

We managed to get our bus from Bariloche, we arrived in Santiago at about 9am

. Our flight wasn't until 11pm, so we had the whole day to have a look around Santiago. I had heard people saying that it wasn't a very nice place, but I was pleasantly surprised. When we got off at the bus terminal, we took a taxi into the centre.

Our only quandary was what to do with our bags. It's too hot to be lugging them about with us all day, that's for sure. While we were deciding, we had to get out of the sun. We saw a McDonald's and went in there for breakfast as we hadn't eaten yet. Afterwards, we went back into the metro station nearby to ask if there was anywhere to leave our bags. Luckily, there was a luggage concierge place, but it was around £10.00 to leave the bags for the day. We had no other option but to leave them there so we could have a walk around the city.

When we unloaded our bags, we went off walking through the city. Our first mission was to try and find a way to get to the airport later tonight. Apparently there was a station that sold tickets quite cheap, and it takes you directly to the airport. We found it and booked a couple of tickets for 7pm. Once that was sorted, we could relax and look round the city. They had a large Christmas tree decorated with tinsel, baubles and lights. There were also some handprints of famous people. One was a prefect fit to mine, and so was the one that John tried. A couple of them had shrines of flowers around them, so perhaps these were famous people that died

Manos- hands

. These were concrete slabs and there were quite a few of them around the city.

We didn't really get chance to do any tourist attractions today as we haven't got a whole day. So we just wandered around the lovely big shopping malls to pass time. One of them had a section high up which gave good views of the city. I was surprised to find out that there are mountains surrounding the city, although it was a little hazy due to city smog. After, we just had lunch and did more shopping until we got hungry again and had some dinner. Then we went to catch our bus to the airport.

Delayed Departure

As we got to the airport early, we had to wait around to check our flight number on the departures board. John saw the footy on in a bar, so he watched that, while I had a look around the airport. There were some cool Rapa Nui fake statues in the shop, that's as close as we're going to get to Easter Island on this trip! We'd already eaten dinner, so we didn't have much to do, but hang around and wait

Famous hands

.

Eventually, our flight number came up, but said delayed. We went to ask about it and they told us it would now be departing at 1am instead of 11pm. Great, that's all we needed. Later we found out that because the Santiago to Auckland route is one of the most popular routes, they actually had to run two planes for all the passengers who had booked the flight for tonight. I think because it's in between Christmas and new year, this flight had been fully booked months ago. I remember when booking our round the world ticket, we couldn't get this flight for the dates we wanted. It means we get to spend New Year's Eve in Auckland rather than Santiago, which is a bonus anyway.

When we were in the check in queue, we actually got a choice if we went on the 11pm, or the 1am flight. We were going to choose the 11pm one of course, but they said they would pay $150 dollars per person compensation if we took the later flight. We'd already been hanging around for a few hours, so what difference would another couple of hours make

Santiago

. So that was our decision made for us! We had to queue up for ages trying to sort out the claim, but it was worth it, as they gave us US $300 cash. By the time we'd done all that, it was actually time to board the flight anyway. We treated ourselves to donuts and drinks while we waited in the departure lounge. Auckland here we come!

Highlights of South America

This blog entry also signifies that our South American adventure has come to an end. It's been six of the best months of my life. I would like to share some of my highlights of the trip so far;