We have arrived! It was not easy getting here to say the least. There were the normal issues, the drive to Miami, checking in a bag and going through security. We used our points to fly first class so we went through the priority gate at the security area. We were not sure that it was any faster than the regular screening area. After stripping off my belt, my shoes and removing my computer and hat I was deemed safe to proceed. We made a bee line to the 1st class club but the attendant told us that we really should be at the flagship lounge. So we turned around and walked the 18 gates to the flagship lounge. We enjoyed a relaxing sip of champagne, given to us at the door of the lounge, and took a load off of our feet. After a couple of hours we started back. We were going to take the sky train back to our gate but the elevator was kaput so we walked 22 gates to our gate. It is no wonder that my step counter topped off at 14,000 steps. But once I got seated in my pod I was ready for a long sit down. The flight was 4134 miles but the display said it was 8000 miles? Once we landed there were the new hurdles for us to jump over. As I mentioned in the last post there is a whole new set of barriers to travel due to Covid. American Airlines needed us to submit a series of documents through an app called VeriFly. These included our Vaccine info, an affidavit for the Chilean Government, a recent PCR Covid test. That is allot of scanning and uploading. We then had to present all of this plus proof of travel insurance when we landed in Chile. However this was after a 8 hour night flight where we were lucky to have two or three hours of sleep between the two of us. There was a bit of a hiccup on our affidavit but we resubmitted those on the spot and we were allowed to proceed down the line. The next stop was another PCR test. We lined up with the other passengers and when it was our time we were probed with some primitive Q-tip style weaponry! I was aware that the human brain is just a few centimeters behind the nasal cavities, I was not aware that the test administrators were actually going to drive the sampling Q-tip into my brain. Woof! The policy in Chile is, if the traveler can pass a PCR test upon arrival they do not need to isolate. It was a small price to pay to skip 5 days of quarantine. We got though customs but had to surrender the fruit that we took off of the plane. We got to our driver who took us to the AirBnB. But we still had to wait 6 hours for the PCR test results to get posted. We tested negative and got the results with a QR code so now we are golden. We have our mobility pass and proof of multiple negative tests. We celebrated by walking down to the Jumbo market and got breakfast food, beer, wine and a chicken for dinner. It will be an early night for us most certainly due to the lack of sleep on the plane. Tomorrow will be a new day for these travelers.
Our AirBnB for the next five days
It is not luxurious but it is in a nice area and it meets all of our needs
Looking out our window to a sunny Santiago day
During out two previous visits this river had always been mostly dry. Now that we are here in the Summer, the snowmelt from the mountains is impressive
This town has architecture to spare
The big walkway into the market
Boy oh boy is this stuff HOT!
