SV Sine Timore: Way down south

Santiago, Chile

We have come to the end of another long journey.

Our trip to Santiago started off a little rough but otherwise went according to plan. We had booked a pickup from the boat with the marina for 7:30AM. Otherwise we have no way of getting to shore once our dinghy is stored on deck. Of course, no one showed up and they were not answering hails on the VHF radio. Fortunately, one of the other cruisers moored in the estuary came to our rescue and gave us a ride in in his dinghy (Thanks Kim).

A short taxi ride got us to the bus terminal where we caught the 8:30AM bus to the city of Guayaquil. After a 5-1/2 hour ride, we arrived at the main bus terminal and grabbed a taxi to the airport, which is right next door but requires a lengthy drive entirely around it, in order to get to the departure gates, due to all of the one way roads.

Ecuadorean countryside

Our plane did not leave until 6:15PM and our route required a connection in Bogota, Columbia, which is not exactly in a straight line to Chile. In fact, we chose this routing over a much shorter one connecting in Lima because we did not want to arrive in the middle of the night in Santiago. It worked great and we touched down in Santiago just after 6AM local time (we have lost two hours due to travelling a little further east and getting to a country that uses daylight savings time. The fact that it was already light out when we arrived and the sun is just setting as I am writing this at 9PM, shows just how far south we have now come.

The only problem with arriving early in the morning is that we could not check into our hotel until this afternoon, which meant we spent a half day walking around town, trying to stay awake with the help of much consumption of coffee. Our initial impression of Santiago is of a large, bustling city, a little smoggy but otherwise quite pretty and well maintained.

Hotel Botique Tremo

For breakfast this morning, and again for an early supper this evening, we found our way to an interesting collection of shops and restaurants in an area call the Patio Bellavista, which is just over a block away from our hotel. All in all, we are very impressed with the quality and location of our chosen hotel, the Hotel Botique Tremo. We are walking distance to much of what we would want to see in Santiago.

The only real annoying thing on this journey was the "reciprocity" fee charged by the Chilean government for anyone arriving by plane from Australia, Canada or Mexico. This is in retaliation for the fact that Canada has a visa requirement for Chilean citizens for visiting Canada. It cost us $264US to get out of customs and immigration ($132 each).

When we were in the taxi, leaving the airport for our hotel, we spotted a Canadian government plane parked on the runway. Susanne just checked online to discover that our Govenor General is in town and just announced today that Canada is dropping the visa requirements for Chilean citizens, and Chile has agreed to drop the reciprocity fee in return. What horrible timing for us!

Tomorrow, once we are rested up, we will do some further exploration of the town.