First Impressions of South America

Our flights to Dallas, then an hour later to Santiago, Chile were long and uneventful- just the way they are supposed to be. When we bought these tickets we requested the exit rows on the two seat side of the plane. So we didn't have to contend with people's heads in our laps or zero leg room. Wonderful. The only glitch is that our nine hour flight was in a coach bulkhead row, which the flight attendant says catches a draft from somewhere. She wasn't kidding. Mike was using two blankets and a sweater to ward off the cold on his already sore shoulder.

As we were coming into the airport we both had exactly the same impression. Imagine flying into Palm Springs airport- with the mountains surrounding a desert area and you have the approach to the Santiago airport. The Andes Mountains, which I had imagined to be huge snow covered mountains capable of crashing multiple planes seemed tamer and less scary than I had imagined. A bit of snow sat on top of the highest peaks, but given the summer weather here, most had melted away.

The airport was as modern and crowded as any airport in any big city. In fact, if you did not know you were in Chile, in South America, you could have been anywhere. I had imagined that security would be tight, perhaps with machine gun armed soldiers patrolling the airport like in Paris. It was not nearly so intimidating. Police are everywhere- but they seem friendly rather than imposing. After we left the airport we were pulled over for a driving infraction of which we were guilty but totally ignorant of the law, and in sign language we reached agreement to follow the law (drive in the lanes marked for cars and not for buses) and were dismissed with a friendly reminder that Mike was also breaking the mandatory seat belt law.

The folks at the Avis counter were very friendly and seem to have set the pattern we would see for the next few days. One guy can speak English in every situation we have been in, and the others, who don't speak a word, go to find him to deal with us. The Avis man, a good looking young man, convinced us that we needed to purchase the insurance at $22 US a day. When I remarked that he was a good salesman, and Mike told him he ought to work in the US in sales, he offered to come with us. In response for my request for directions, we got a hand drawn map that showed the airport and the surrounding roads with the directions to the appropriate highway.

Just as we left the airport, on the advice of our friendly Avis man, we stopped at the ATM and withdrew $100,000CH, or approximately $200US. Thank goodness. As it turns out, the ATM in the airport appears to be the only ATM in all of Chile in which our ATM cards work. The cash we withdrew has been used to pay tolls on the roads between the airport and our hotel in the beach town one hour away of Vina Del Mar. On our first full day in Chile we had to leave our hotel in the morning and drive back to Santiago, one hour away, to visit the Brazilian consulate. In all of our travels, we had missed the fact that our cruise leaving next weekend requires a Brazilian visa.

Driving in Santiago is as bad as driving in any city anywhere, with possible exceptions for the horrible driving I saw in Mumbai and Delhi and maybe Paris. The drivers here seem to follow the rules- they stay in lane and stop at lights, unlike their counterparts in India. The streets are a complex network of one way streets and reserved lanes; the inside lanes of the boulevard are for cars and an uncrossable barrier separates these lanes from the outer lanes for buses. Only in the intersections can you pass between these sections in order to make a right turn in the following block. Left turns can only occur every four or five blocks, where there is a lane to turn left or U-turn. Every few blocks two policeman are standing in the bus lanes waving over cars that are driving in this lane. That was our first, and hopefully only, experience with the Chilean police.

We had expected more poverty than we have seen. Yes, on the outskirts of Santiago we saw a shanty town that we are thankful we don't have to live in. But, by and large, the Chilean housing looks like apartments and single family homes everywhere else in the world. Santiago has high rise apartment buildings, lavish in the nice areas, and run down looking in the cheaper neighborhoods. The suburbs have single family homes that look like their counterparts elsewhere. As we have been driving we have seen a variety of housing, but overall it is much nicer than in the parts of Mexico we have visited.

One could not ask for better weather than we have experienced so far. The days have been in the 70-80 range with no humidity. The days are summer long, and the evenings have been perfect for walking. Our first two nights were spent in a hotel in Vina del Mar, the O'Higgins. Panned in Aunt Donna's Frommer guidebook, but called a stately old beauty in our book, the truth was somewhere in between. The location was right in the center of town on the main square, making it easy to explore the town. The wide halls, parquet floors and huge lobby speak to the long ago heyday of their hotel. It has aged and show every year. Tiles were missing around our bathtub. Cracks were apparent everywhere. But the service was good.

Service has been exceptional everywhere. If a job in the US can be done by one person, it is usually staffed by half a person, making you wish to have a bit more of their time. Here, there are five people doing the one person's job. When we stopped for gas I counted four attendants pumping gas, washing windows and providing customer serve. The hotel had a half dozen uniformed people tending to the occasional customer needing help. We never carried our suitcase without someone coming by to grab it and carry it for us. We had help parking our car and turning down our sheets. Always helpful and never standing around to collect a tip.

It is after 11:00 PM here (we are five hours ahead of the US west coast) and already know of the Seahawks defeat, so we are going to wrap up for the night. Tomorrow I will write about the awesome hotel were we are currently staying.

Til then,
Deanne