It’s a long way to Santiago Chile. From Miami between us we watched seven movies and enjoyed lunch and dinner (or was it two dinners – very confusing given the passage of time). It’s even even longer for Doug and Louise Pegg, our travelling companions, who are coming from Toronto. Based on a single experience I would give LATAM airlines a top rating for service and all aspects of the flight. OK we didn’t get crystal glasses but the Chilean wine was very nice.
And our first exposure to Santiago was a pleasant surprise as the highways are pristine and numerous even if the ride in from the airport was spent in some of the longest road tunnels in existence. Very unlike Lima!
Our lack of Spanish and the cabbies minimal English resulted in our being delivered to a lovely hotel albeit not the one where we had reservations. Seems there’s more than one Pullman hotel in the same general vicinity of the city. A short Uber ride later we finally “arrived”.
The crazy currency exchange rate means simple items cost thousands of pesos. For example the cab ride was 24,000 pesos which sounds outrageous but actually translates to $31 US/$40 CAD. It feels odd carrying a couple of hundred thousand of any currency.
Weirdly Chile is two hours behind the eastern time zone even though it’s geographically west so our long day got even longer. Tomorrow we will explore the city.
The Bennetts On Tour 