So John and I are off on another adventure. Over the next three weeks we will be in South America exploring the southern parts of Chile and Argentina with a brief stop in the Falklands Islands, that last outpost of Her Majesty’s Empire in the South Atlantic.
Tonight’s entry in this journal will be short. To paraphrase Tolstoy, good travel days are all alike and bad travel days, even though they are miserable in different ways, are not any the more interesting for it. We were unfortunately delayed leaving Los Angeles and missed our early morning flight from Bogotá to Santiago de Chile. The Avianca lounge at the Bogotá airport is pleasant, but I would rather we had not spent over six hours there.
It was nine in the evening when we finally arrived at the Santiago airport. We cleared immigration without any problems, but it was the usual wait to pick up the luggage. We leave on our cruise Saturday from San Antonio on the coast, so I had done the math and figured out that renting a car was a bit cheaper, and certainly more flexible, than trying to take taxis between the cities. I picked up the car and we drove into town.
I have been to Santiago before and I like the city. The old sections have some of the European charm of the nicer parts of Buenos Aires, but they feel much calmer and far safer. In fact, some of the newer parts of the city vaguely resemble Tustin! We are staying the night in an old house in Bellavista that has been converted into a small hotel. It is called the Castillo Rojo. It does not particularly look like a castle, but someone painted it a bright shade of red. The interior is quite fun as you can see.
Tomorrow we will do some exploring and a little shopping in Santiago, and then we will be heading out to Valparaiso.
