Chile

11-15-09
We got up today around 7:00AM. Marian’s mom & dad came get our luggage and take us to have coffee. The whole family met us at Havanna for breakfast and coffee/tea. Dale and I split a ham & cheese sandwich. Afterwards, we all went to the airport. It was a sad goodbye. Everyone was crying. Too bad we don’t all live closer.


On our flight, we had a ham and cheese sandwich and cake for lunch. They were also serving wine at no charge. We had a 4 hour layover in Buenos Aires with no free internet connection L

We took Aerolineas Argentinas for both flights from Asuncion to Buenos Aires and our connecting flight to Santiago. Guess what we had for dinner…..another ham & cheese sandwich and cake. By that time, I was a little sick of eating ham & cheese.

We got to Chile and had to go through the line to pay our reciprocity fee - $131 each. At first we got in the wrong line. We thought we were doing so well….Then through immigration and then customs. At customs, there was another person in front of us having trouble with their bags. The customs agent told us to take our bags off the conveyor belt. I guess we were tired and I didn’t check. We missed getting a bag. It was my rolling carry on bag that had the computer, cookies and Marisol’s $100.00 stethoscope in it!!!

When we got to Marisol’s house, we sat around and were talking for a while. I went up to my room to get the computer to show them and I realized that the bag was missing. Marisol’s dad, Dario, called the airport to see if the bag was there. (I should mention that Dario is a retired general in the carabaneros, the national police force) We drove to the airport in record time. During our drive there, we got a call that they found the bag. What a relief! When we got there, we pulled up behind a police car. When Dario got out of the car, all of the officers near the car saluted him. The made me open the bag in front of them to be sure it was mine. Imagine my relief….everything was still inside

Before this fiasco, we were eating sandwiches and fruit and going over our schedule for the week. Dario had it all written down. Looks like another busy week.

Got to bed around midnight.

11-16-09
Up at 7:30. Marisol was still home. She leaves for work around 8:30. Today she will be gone until 11:00PM

They have a made here who is more like a cleaning lady. She normally comes a couple of times a week. She is the same person who worked for them when I was here in 2001. She was nervous with us because she doesn’t speak any English. She is an excellent cook. She made us breakfast and tea (not the kind in the teabags)

After breakfast, Dale, Dario and Nacho (Marisol’s brother) and I went for a tour on a hop on/hop off bus. This bus is new in Santiago. Dario had some kind of discount and got 50% off our tickets. We saw many sites. We got off the bus two times. We walked around a downtown mall type area. This area also had many old buildings. At the other stop we got off, Dario told us to be careful of our belongings We walked through a protest of teachers, stopped at the Metropolitan Cathedral, saw historical buildings like City Hall, walked along a boulevard closed to traffic where there were lots of shops, and ended up at the Central Market. The Central Market is a large fish market. There are lots of restaurants here too. All the restaurants have someone standing outside telling you to try theirs.

Downtown


The Cathedral Inside - mass was being said


The walk along the boulevard


The Central Market

They took us to a little typical bar that was down an alley. This is one place we would never have found on or gone to our own! But they told us that President Clinton had been there. Dale had a drink called an earthquake. It had some kind of alcohol with pineapple ice cream on top. I had a red wine that had strawberries in it. Dario had the same as me and I’m not sure what Nacho had. They called it our apperatif because we were eating something for lunch at home. People write all over the tables, walls and pillars.

Dario, Anne, Dale in front of "bar" The alley to get to the bar


Inside


Afterward, I had to go the bathroom. Dario took me back to the market where he had to pay 200 pesos for me to us the bathroom.

We got back on the bus and headed back to the largest malls in Chile (where we started our tour). They had a Starbucks at the mall. So Dale tried to order a pumpkin spice latte. The clerk laughed at him and then proceeded to tell all the other clerks what he ordered. They were all laughing at his request. Apparently, they don’t have that flavor in Chile.

We went home and had a delicious lunch prepared by Adriana. It started with an egg salad and avocado salad. Then we had individual casseroles of a mashed corn and meat. It was all very good. Lunch was around 3PM. After lunch, we all had a siesta.

After our siesta, we went to Centro Artesanal de Los Dominicos to look for typical things made by people in Chile. We got ideas but only bought one thing for Brayden.

Then, we went to the clubhouse for the carabeneros. The clubhouse is up the mountain and has a clear view of Santiago. You don’t realize how big Santiago is until you go to the top of the mountain to look at it.

View of Santiago from clubhouse. Marisol's house is near the building in the front of the picture.


views of the clubhouse

We went grocery shopping and came home for a little snack before our next outing. It is now around 7:00PM

When it got dark, we traveled to Santa Lucia hill. At the top of the hill is the statue of the Virgin. The views from the top are magnificent. When we got to the entrance of the park, the guard stopped us and told us it was closed. I think Dario was trying to use his carabeneros influence but it didn’t work. As we were leaving, he remembered that there was a restaurant on the hill. He asked the guard for the phone number and called the restaurant to make reservations. The guard verified that we had a reservation and let us go up the hill. We went to the top of the hill and looked around. My pictures do not do the views justice. And then we left. Dario never called to cancel our reservation.


We went back home for dinner. Remember it is now after 10:00PM. Marisol arrived home after 11:00PM and we had delicious cheeseburgers with lettuce, tomato, onions, mayo and ketchup made by Nacho - he is a trained chef.

To bed around 12:30AM….no wonder Marisol doesn’t start work until 9AM.