Fri-Sat, June 21-22 Flying to Chile

We got up at 6:30 AM,  shut up the house, and took the Riviera Taxi to the SB Airport.  After a breakfast croissant at the airport cafe we finally boarded out American flight at 11, about 30 minutes late.  We had the first row in coach seats, so we had very good leg room.  A very pompous prof behind us expounded on his life’s work, something to do with rhythm in Faulkner’s novels....in a loud voice!   We arrived in Dallas at 4 PM, took the Sky Train to terminal D and found a nice Mexican restaurant where we had tortilla soup, spinach enchiladas and Negra Modelos, and passed some of the time until our flight to Santiago finally took off at 8:30 PM.  We were on a 787 Dreamliner and in very comfortable Premium Economy seats.  After gin and tonics, squash risotto, and some TV we managed to get a few hours of sleep arriving in winter in still dark Santiago at 7 AM local time.

We cruised through Immigration and as we were entering the luggage carousel area, there was our niece, Caitlin!  We hung around the bottles of booze and Toblerone of the duty free shop until we finally got too weary and found a sofa to collapse on.  After the arrival of the Delta flight from Atlanta around 8 I got my sister, Hilary’s, suitcase off the carousel, but no Hil.  Finally, she appeared, having  been delayed in immigration by a sudden arrival of jets from Paris and Rio.

Great relief as I had been worried about getting four people from three fights to rendezvous in a noisy bustling airport!

After checking-in at the domestic terminal, we were feeling peckish and stopped for sandwiches, coffee, and a beer for me, at Danes,  a Danish coffee shop. We climbed onto our LATAM plane to Antofagasta and took off at 1 PM flying over barren desert and ridges of mountains with a view of snowy Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Western hemisphere. 

Our jet landed in coastal fog at the airport of this gritty fishing and mining town that made its riches off of the nitrate boom of the 1800s and then copper production.  Hilary had rented a Toyota 4-Runner which we really needed for all our luggage and four passengers, and amazingly, it was there and ready for us!  We easily fit in and started off towards town, stopping at a small coastal park with a lovely natural sea arch, La Portada, and our first sea birds, which were amazingly abundant.

We drove into town along the coastal road and easily found the Hotel Panamericana, a 5-story hotel right on the beach and next to the old fishing harbor filled with colorful boats.

  Our rooms on the fifth floor (with very weak wifi) overlook a lovely bird-filled lagoon that in summer must be turquoise in the sun and filled with bathers!  As it is the winter solstice the days are short here so we didn’t have time to explore, and instead headed for the bar and our welcome drinks: a round of Pisco Sours, the delicious national cocktail made with Pisco, the local brandy, and lemon juice. 

The restaurant opened at seven on the dot and we staggered in and ordered fish stew and lamb shank and a bottle of Chilean Sauvignon Blanc.  Our waiter started us with two plates of various bread & rolls with olive and cilantro dip and sopapillas (very different from New Mexico’s) with salsa which filled us up!   We collapsed into bed right after dinner