Day -2 - 05/Jan/24 - Santiago, Chile to San Antonio, Chile
I had trouble sleeping on this overnight flight. As the sun came up, the rugged Andes mountains poked their way through the numerous clouds. We landed at 7:15am which was 15 minutes late due to the passenger issue I described yesterday. It took 45 minutes from the time we landed until we reached passport control in the terminal. There we had a long serpentine queue to follow and we were at the end of it as we were seated in the back of the plane. While the plane was taxiing, I did book a couple nights lodging at a hotel near the embarkation port.
We passed through security and found the baggage claim area. On the way, a sniffing dog used to detect meat or vegetable items being brought into the country hit on me. I had a ziplock bag that formerly held some very aromatic pepperoni and I'm sure that set the dog off. I explained what it was and we proceeded on. Our luggage was among the last off the airplane, but we knew they were with us as the AirTags stored inside each broadcast their location to us. We then went through customs and turned in our SAG form (agricultural & financial declarations). If one doesn't have the form, there is a QR code that can be scanned to complete it electronically.
Just before exiting the controlled space we spotted a couple Holland America representatives. We chatted with them, and they urged us to not use Uber but use the official taxi company. So for $12,000CHP or $134US we took a taxi for the 80 miles to our hotel in San Antonio. As we approached San Antonio, the driver stopped and unsuccessfully tried to get his cellphone GPS to route him to the hotel. So I used mine which had it locked in. This was all done without me speaking Spanish and him not speaking English. But we made it there by 10:30am and the hotel desk clerk allowed us an early check in which was much appreciated.
The hotel is perched above the port with great views. It's an older hotel with lots of "character". It's not a Wyndham or any other large chain by any stretch of the imagination, but it's clean, comfortable, and very near the port. The views are wonderful and we'll be able to see our ship when it arrives on Sunday. We couldn't enjoy the views as we both needed a nap, a 5 hour nap!
We woke up refreshed and walked about 10 minutes north and down the hill to the local multi-story mall. It was quite busy, but just found a few items I was looking for (sandals and a front pack) plus we got some local currency from an ATM and enjoyed a terrific pulled pork sandwich in the food court. The sidewalks outside the mall were filled with many independent vendors selling all measure of goods. They also spilled over onto the esplanade which follows the sea wall. We continued our walk north along the sea wall until we came across a beach filled with resting sea lions or Seawolves as the locals call them. There were at least 50 of them. At that point we strolled through the remnants of the daily fish market and spotted a ceviche restaurant we'll likely try tomorrow. We then walked south along the esplanade shopping and taking in the vendor sights, sounds, and local harbor views. About a mile south of the mall there is a set of stairs that climb the embankment. So we climbed them and made our way back a few blocks to our hotel where we sat out on benches admiring the scenery and just chilling out. Because it's summer here, it stayed light until well after 8:30pm, but eventually we made it back to our casita, showered and bedded down for the night.
We have no specific agenda for tomorrow (definitely no alarm clock!), but I suspect we will stroll the esplanade and visit the fish market as well. We did not see any other tourists today in the port area.
Comments
Post a Comment