Although
we set our alarm at 7:30 AM Sunday, Sally was already up and finishing the last
stages of packing. Jesse awoke to the
alarm. He had managed to pack a couple
of pairs of pants on Saturday, but finally started his serious packing on
Sunday morning. By 2:00 PM we had
finished packing and loading the car. We
made to the Peoria airport by 3:45 PM or so, which was plenty of time to make
our 5:45 PM flight to Dallas/Fort Worth.
Then, however, we sat in the airport until we finally boarded our plane,
which was late in arriving, at 7:00 PM.
In
case anyone is wondering, we found that it is far less expensive to drive to
Peoria and take advantage of the complimentary parking, than to pay taxi fare
or parking fees at the Quad Cities airport.
Although there would be no advantage for one- or two-week trips, when we’re
gone for 30 days or more, there is definitely a cost advantage.
Our
plane landed in DFW at 9:05 PM. No, we
didn’t exactly “run” for our plane, but we moved through the airport fast
enough to catch our 9:45 PM flight to Santiago, Chili. Long flights are always the worst part of our
travels. Sally did manage to sleep a
little, but Jesse watched movies all night, only dozing a couple of times
during “Birdman.”
At
10:30 AM, our flight landed in Santiago on Monday, 2 Mar 2015. We had a slight mishap getting to our
hotel. Since we had been warned on many
occasions to only hire taxis from the line in front of the airport exit, we
should have known better. After picking
up our luggage and going through customs, a man near the exit door asked if we
needed a taxi. When we responded yes, he
and another man grabbed our luggage and started rolling it in the opposite
direction. We were careful to keep up
with them, and when we arrived at airport parking, it was obvious that these
were not official taxi drivers. They
wanted us to prepay our fare of 60,000 CLPs.
Luckily we had visited Santiago previously and remembered paying $40.00
USD from the hotel to the airport. When
we objected to the price, the driver agreed to accept 30,000 CLPs. Although we weren’t sure of the exact
exchange rates, we agreed. It turned out
that we paid a equivalent of $48.60 USD for the taxi ride. This wasn’t the best price but it was a lot
better than $97.20 USD!
We
arrived safely at Hotel Neruba at about 1:00 PM, but had to wait in the lobby
before getting into our room at 1:30 PM, which was actually earlier than
check-in time of 2:00 PM, which was a pleasant surprise. After lounging in our room until 5:00 PM (Sally
napped), we went to dinner. We ended up
in the Tung Fung Restaurant, one of the same restaurants where we ate in
2012! The wait staff still hadn’t
learned to speak English, but we muddled through the menu and meal with our
very, very, poor Spanish. We were both
very tired, and soon called it an early night.
On
Tuesday, we awoke around 9 AM and went down to the lobby for the complimentary
breakfast. It was as good as we remembered,
but still not omelets or waffles. Oh
well! We met two women from Arizona at
breakfast, who told us about the volcano erupting not too far south. After breakfast, we had intended to do a
little sightseeing, possibly taking the hop on/hop off tour bus, but Sally was still
so exhausted from our flight to Santiago that she had been sleeping most of the
day. Jesse spent most of his day watching BBC news on TV and playing on
his laptop. BBC was the only English speaking program that we were able
to find on TV in Santiago. We heard the Israeli Prime Minister’s speech
to Congress and news about the volcano eruption. Incidentally, Monday night, we watched a
little of The Green Mile in Spanish.
It was really interesting to watch, since we knew the story. (However, Del Delacroix still responded “merci” after John Coffey revived his
mouse.)
 |
| El Huerto Restaurant |
About 5:30 PM we started walking and reviewing
menus posted outside several restaurants before selecting El Huerto Restaurant,
which seemed to serve Chilean dishes. After
hearing our many questions about the meal selections, the waitress finally
brought us menus in English, which was a great help! The restaurant turned out to be totally
vegetarian, with very healthy food; we shared two dishes that the waitress
assured us were Chilean. (That was Jesse’s
main requirement.) After dinner, we
returned to our hotel room and started making final preparations for our cruise
and watching BBC until bedtime.
On Wednesday, 4 Mar, we awoke to our
alarm around 7:30 AM and went down to the complimentary breakfast. We had prearranged a taxi for our trip to the
port in Valparaiso with two other couples from Desert Sands, CA: Saul, Gail, Marcel, and Lori. By sharing the taxi/van, the trip cost us only
$47,000 CLP per couple; that’s about $75.00 US.
The taxi/van picked us up about
11:30 AM. It was a tight fit; the two of
us sat in the narrow middle seat, with the extra luggage stacked between that
seat and the outside door. But the van did
hold the six of us, and all of our luggage.
During our conversation during the two-hour drive to Valparaiso, they
said they had paid only 18,000 CLPs for their taxi from the Santiago Airport to
their hotel, considerably less than we did.
They have cruised at least as much as we have. By 2:00 PM we were in our cabin, where we
rested until our luggage was delivered to the room and also the mandatory 5:00 PM
lifeboat drill. We also met our cabin
steward, Pramote, from the Philippines.
After the drill, we unpacked our luggage before
going to dinner about 7:30 PM, where we shared a table with Ryan, Sylvia,
Chester, and Chloe. Ryan and Sylvia were
originally from the Detroit area, but have lived in Florida for the last 30
years; they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last year. Chester and Chloe live in central Oregon; they
only recently started cruising but have traveled quite a bit by land, including
Israel and Machu Picchu (Chloe only).
After dinner we danced to the last half of the last song in the
Explorers Lounge before that band went on break. Afterward, we went out on the deck to watch
the sail away from Valparaiso. Standing
near us was a couple we had seen earlier dancing, and they recognized us (we
thought they looked familiar, also).
They are Bryan and Bernie, from near Auckland, New Zealand, and were also on our Alaska to Asia cruise in
2013. Then we went to the Wheelhouse Bar;
although the first song played there by the Rhumba Duo sounded like too much
jazz, we ended up dancing to several songs, including even a Tango. Only one other couple danced, but then only
to two or three Cha Chas. Finally, after
one very long salsa, we retired to our cabin about 9:45 PM.
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