I kind of left you hanging on yesterday’s entry but spoiler alert, you are reading this so we landed safely and I am still alive.
Landing amongst the fjords must be challenging day in and day out. As we are approaching Santiago, I turned off my movie and decided to pull up the map on the screen. I noticed that we are on top of Santiago and low to the ground. So, I am thinking we should be seeing the airport any second. However, I cannot see 2 feet outside of the window due to the heavy fog. All of a sudden, the plane thrusts hard and we are now plastered to the seat backs and the altitude reading is climbing – fast! We level off and the pilot informs us that due to the foggy conditions, they had to abort the landing and try it again. Yikes! That was perhaps the most thrust I’ve ever felt on a plane. As we are approaching the ground again, the fog is slightly thinner but I still cannot see the ground. And then a glimpse of it, followed by us touching down. Crazy!! Happy to be safely on the ground.
7:00 a.m. – We exit the plane and follow the signs to the immigration area. It’s only 7 a.m. local time so the international arrivals area is not very busy. We had to complete a form online with the Chilean Agriculture Department as to our possessions. I filled mine out while waiting in Dallas so I am all good to go. Next is luggage claim to get my back before going to customs. The entire process took about 45 minutes to complete.
After we left the customs area, the Silversea Expeditions staff was waiting with a sign so we could identify them easily. There were 11 passengers that arrived at the same time / same flight so they handled our luggage for us and escorted us to our van for the transfer to our hotel for the night.
9:00 a.m. – We arrived at our home for tonight, the Ritz-Carlton Santiago, and being fairly early, we had some time to fill before we could get into our room. I did the pre-check-in with the hotel and they stored my luggage. Upstairs in the mezzanine level, Silversea Expeditions had a welcome desk so I checked in there to receive my welcome letter with more information about my transfer the next morning. I wandered over to the hospitality room that was set up for us and enjoyed some refreshments while we waited. This program that allowed me to experience this was arranged through Signature Travel Network (and of course Silversea Expeditions) so there were about 2 dozen travel advisors and their guests in our group. I met some of them in the hotel so we chatted about various travel related things.
12:00 noon – Our room is ready and I met my roommate for the first time just before then. Since I was traveling without my wife, I shared a room with an advisor named Oded. My boss knows him so I was assured that we would get along fine. We dropped our stuff off in our room and then he went to explore the town. I was lucky enough to have 2 friends traveling on this trip (I met them on my last trip in October when I went to Norway). I met up with Marge and her husband, Ron, to chat for a bit until their room was ready.
Ritz-Carlton Santiago
1:30 p.m. – I went to my room to shower and relax a bit. I sat on the balcony to enjoy the 80 degree weather while I caught up on some reading.
2:30 p.m. – I got a message that our boarding passes for our flight tomorrow were ready so I went to the Silversea desk to pick those up for both of us. We will be flying to Punta Arenas Chile, the southernmost part of Chile, for another night before we travel to Antarctica.
6:30 p.m. – I was getting hungry now so I met up with Oded, Marge and Ron for dinner. I enjoy visiting Hard Rock Cafe establishments when I travel (I have been to 17 now) so I selfishly wanted to visit there. I talked them into it and we all had a nice time. It was about a 15 minute walk to the restaurant and it stayed daylight until about 10 p.m. so we could easily find our way. The meal was really good but surprisingly the staff didn’t speak much English and the menu was all in Spanish. I was surprised since it was a HRC and generally they don’t have language barriers. It took them a bit to understand a drink order for a Rum & Coke and someone ordered a side of onion rings but received another complete meal with the side dish as onion rings. Anyways, we did have good food and good conversation so it was a win.
Hard Rock Cafe, Santiago Chile
The architecture of Santiago was unique in that the buildings all look different. Then you have the mountains in the background, which look really cool.
9:30 p.m. – We finished our walk back from the restaurant and after traveling all day, I was pretty tired. We were required to watch some safety videos before we board the cruise ship so I watched those before I went to bed. We had to put our luggage outside the room before midnight so that the staff could gather them and take them to the airport for us tomorrow.
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