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We're on our way to Chile!
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We finally got everything sorted... clothes donated, furniture given away, car sold, 9 packed suitcases and a small storage shed full of whatever was left. It's really amazing the stuff you collect even after only 2 years in a fully furnished rental!
Our flight was on Lan Chile from LA through Lima and down to Santiago. We were expecting to have a crappy plane, the ones with the seats that feel like they are padded with a piece of cardboard and a few TVs up on the ceiling which show either a green or pink picture because they are so old. Don't know why we expected that, but we did.
First of all the check-in was a breeze. It started with a Lanchile concierge pointing you to the right lane rather than wondering around trying to find where to go. The checkin clerk was super friendly and super quick. We had 6 bags to check in and 3 to carry on. No problems there either, all straight forward and everything got on the plane.
When we boarded the plane we found we really did have the wrong impression of Lan Chile. The plane was great. It had just been refurbished in the same style as the A380 we got from London a couple of months ago. Nice wide seats and wide screen on demand tv. We had an exit row with loads of legroom and the guy sitting next to us decided to move to an empty window seat so we had the whole row to ourselves. So all in all, I'm a fan of LanChile airlines! A good sign to start off the move.
We had a quick stop in Lima, only an hour or so. We jumped off the plane and toasted our first drink in South America at a little bar in the airport.
In Santiago everything again was a breeze. We paid our $100 entry fee which apparently is only for a handfull of countries who charge Chileans to enter theirs. Onya Australia. The immigration guy was actually nice, big change from the grumps at the US border! And in a couple of minutes we were through with our 3 month tourist visa.
After counting all 9 of our bags at the carousel we headed out into Santiago :-) Some guy with a maxi taxi asked if he could take us into the hotel for a 'small' fee of $60. I'm sure we were ripped off but hey, it was 5am, we had 9 bags, we didn't have to find and wait in a taxi line and the fact that we don't speak Spanish, we were happy to pay. Then of course the guy loading the truck wanted a tip and all we had were $10,000 notes (peso's) which is US$20. Then the driver wanted a tip and again only $10,000 notes. So all up $100 for our trip from the airport. Probably not something you want to do if you're backpacking on the cheap.
Yay, we are in Chile!! :-)
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