Andes - mesmerising view
Epilogue : Dec 21 & 22, 2019
A day before our return journey to India, we relax in the lounge at our hotel in Santiago enjoying the mesmerising view of Andes Mountains.
Andes gazing from Club Lounge
We woke up leisurely at 7:30 am in our luxurious Club Room on 17th floor facing Presidente Kennedy Avenue. The huge windows provided a great view of Andes Mountains. After a quick shower, we headed to Senso for breakfast. After filling breakfast of fruits, bread, juice and fried eggs, we headed back to our room. We collected our iPads and walked down to the Club Lounge on the 16th floor. The Club Lounge was tastefully decorated with luxurious seating and had tall floor-to-ceiling glass windows that afforded marvellous view of the neighbourhood and Andes Mountains at a distance.
We settled down in the lounge and immersed in reading on our iPads while the staff provided a steady supply of hot tea. Occasionally, we would walk up to the buffet counter and pick up some light eats for snacking. Originally, we had planned the day for some local sight-seeing, but decided against it after getting reports of continuing civil unrest in Santiago city centre. We spent the whole day at the lounge, reading and admiring the Andes at the distance. Some light sandwiches from buffet counter constituted our lunch.
At 6:00 pm, we exited from the lounge, deposited our iPads in our room and finished packing our luggage. Then we headed to the neighbouring Parque Arauco Mall for dinner. We enjoyed a delicious Vietnamese dinner of Spring Rolls, Fried Rice, Noodles and Chicken Curry at Pho & Banh Mi in the food court of the mall. After dinner, we walked back to the hotel and retired in our room calling it a day. We had a long journey back to India, the next day.
Vacation comes to a close
We woke up at 7:00 am on Dec 22, 2019. Today, we had a long journey back to India. We freshened up and quickly went down to Senso for breakfast. Thereafter, we picked our luggage and went down to reception for check-out. We had already pre-booked our airport drop with the hotel. The check-out was quick and efficient. We boarded the van and sped towards the airport. It took 30 minutes to reach the airport in the morning traffic.
At the airport, we walked over to the KLM counter and completed the check-in formalities. Thereafter, we cleared the passport control and security and walked towards the gate. We had been warned that it was a 45 minute long walk to the boarding gate. Enroute to the boarding gate, we picked up a few souvenirs and exchanged the local currency at the Money Changer. After a long walk, we finally reached the boarding gate and settled down in the waiting area. It was going to be a very long flight of 17 hours to Amsterdam with an 1 hour stopover at Buenos Aires. We had a short layover of 2.5 hours at Amsterdam before the scheduled departure of our onward connecting flight to Delhi. The boarding started as per schedule. We boarded the aircraft and settled down in our seats. As the flight took off from Santiago Airport, the realisation was dawning that our dream vacation was coming to a close. It was one of the off-beat adventures that we had undertaken and the experience solidified our resolve to do more such off-beat trips and savour mother nature in its pristine glory!
