Santiago - Last Day South of the Equator

Tuesday, 10 Jan 2012 –This will be our last day south of the equator.  The prune liquor turned out to be a lot more potent than we anticipated.  We were planning to consume the entire bottle in one sitting, but only made it halfway.  Luckily though, we were stumbling around our hotel room and not outside in public – that could have had disastrous consequences.  Sally had her first hangover this morning; Jesse is a veteran.  This kept us from attempting any serious sightseeing other than just walking around the area.

This hotel is more upscale than our usual accommodations (which was necessary to ensure that we have air conditioning).  The only problem is that the staff does not speak much English.  Just giving our room number to the breakfast staff was a chore – dos, uno, siete.   That’s not exactly the correct way to say room 217 in Spanish, but we got our point across.   There was a good buffet breakfast here, and we went out again in the late afternoon so that Jesse could have a salad.

Soon we will repack – that is, go through our luggage to make sure that we have only allowable things in our carry-on bags.  Even though the temperature here is about 85 degrees today, we plan to wear our heaviest clothes (corduroys, etc.) and carry our coats.  Our suitcases are at the maximum limits weight-wise.  (It’s supposed to be 92 degrees on Thursday so it could be worse!)  Meanwhile, we have TV to watch.  There are 100 channels here in Santiago.  Many of them are American shows (Dr. Oz speaks fluent Spanish, did you know that?) or English language movies, etc., with Spanish subtitles.  Even we could probably eventually learn Spanish this way.

The desk will have to call a taxi for us.  Since the plane is supposed to depart at 5:00 A.M., there’s no time to sleep.  We don’t have seats on this first plane to Panama City, but maybe someone will trade with one of us so that we can sit together; the two other legs are to Miami and then to Detroit.

Jesse was never able to confirm that the water goes down the drain in the opposite direction here as it does at home although, according to Urban Legends, it does.  The drains we’ve found seem different and the water seems to just go straight down without swirling.  Oh well, Jesse will have to take Urban Legends word for it.

Goodbye Southern Hemisphere!