Arrival at Santiago De Chile
Prologue : Dec 8 & 9, 2019
A 40 hour flight from New Delhi, India to Santiago De Chile marks the start of our dream adventure trip to the 7th continent – Antarctica.
Our KLM flight from Amsterdam landed at Santiago De Chile’s Arturo Merino Benitez Airport at 11:00 am on Dec 8, 2019. It had been a long 17 hours flight with an hour of stopover at Buenos Aires. Actually, our total travel time of over 40 hours had started at 3:20 am on Dec 7, 2019, at New Delhi, when our KLM flight had taken off for Amsterdam. Luckily, we had a 13 hours layover at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport and we utilised that time by checking into Mercure Hotel at Schiphol and getting ourselves refreshed.
Santiago Arrivals
We exited the aircraft and realised that our flight had been docked at the furthest gate of the international terminal building. It was a long & tiring 45 minute walk to the Passport Control. Luckily, the Passport Control was not crowded and had enough counters in service. We quickly cleared the immigration formalities and proceeded to the baggage carousel. On the way to the baggage carousel, we stopped at the Money Changer and picked up some local currency. Thankfully, our check-in luggage arrived soon after. We cleared the Customs and walked over to the arrival area where our airport pickup driver was waiting with a placard bearing our name. We had booked our airport pickup through our hotel in advance. The driver could only speak Spanish. While walking over to the parking lot, we made a short attempt at conversation with the driver which ended in a lot of hand gestures and smiles.
Novotel Santiago Las Condes
We settled down in the comfortable van and our driver sped towards Novotel Santiago Las Condes where we had booked our stay. It being a Sunday, the traffic was sparse on the roads and within 20 minutes our van had pulled up in front of the hotel. We paid the driver and stepped out of the van. After unloading our luggage, we walked over to the Reception for check-in. We were staying 2 nights at the hotel. The first night had been booked by us and the second night had been booked by Silversea Cruises as a part of their charter arrangements from Santiago to Ushuaia.
After completing the check-in formalities, we went to our room upstairs. We unpacked the luggage and took a stock of the room. A refreshing shower rejuvenated us and we finally felt good. We had been through a long flight and tiredness was now seeping in. We went to the restaurant downstairs for lunch. On the way to the restaurant, we stopped by the desk of Silversea Cruises manned by their ground staff. We identified ourselves and picked up the information regarding the chartered flight and airport transfer on Dec 10, 2020. After a quick lunch of Pizza, we came back to our room and slept soundly. The jetlag was finally showing up!
A relaxed evening
We woke up at 6:00 pm. Now feeling fully refreshed, we went out for a walk around the hotel. Las Condes is an upmarket neighbourhood with swanky office and residential buildings. It was a pleasure to walk on the sidewalk with neatly manicured grass patches. We spotted a few Mahindra vehicles – XUV500 and Scorpio, on the road. It was thrilling to see India origin automobiles making a mark on the other side of the globe.
After an hour of refreshing walk, we returned back to the hotel. We headed to the restaurant and ordered for some tea. We sat back enjoying the tea and chatting about the upcoming cruise. After an hour we ordered Chicken Sandwiches and Fries, accompanied by Chilean White Wine, for dinner. After a leisurely dinner, we retired for the day and soon were sound asleep.
Las Condes neighbourhood
We woke up at 7:00 am on Dec 9, 2020. After taking showers and freshening up, we went down to the restaurant for breakfast. It was a fairly large buffet spread with a variety of items – fruits, juices, breads, cakes, eggs, cold cuts, Chilean specialities, tea, coffee etc. We had a filling breakfast accompanied by cups of hot steaming tea.
After the breakfast, we decided to explore the area around the hotel. We walked down Alonso de Cordova till Manquehue Metro Station on Av Apoquindo. Enroute, we saw many shops and establishments with the frontage boarded up, reminiscent of the violent civil unrest that had taken place in Santiago recently. We retraced our steps and found ourselves a comfortable space outside a Starbucks midway to our hotel. We relaxed over a cup of Cappuccino and watched the world pass by. It was Monday morning and people were hurrying on their way to work. The street vendors were setting up their stalls and displaying their wares. The road was choked with cars and SUVs. The whole area was buzzing & active.
After relaxing for an hour, we decided to get back to the hotel. The sun was now climbing up and shining brightly. Back at the hotel, we went to our room and picked up our iPads. We came down and occupied a table near the pool under the canopy. It was a pleasant day and we soon got engrossed with our respective reading. In the afternoon, we ordered sandwiches and tea for lunch. Later in the afternoon, we went back upstairs to our room and enjoyed a quick nap for an hour.
Evening reception
At 5:00 pm, Silversea Cruises hosted a briefing session for all the explorers at the poolside. Over glasses of wine and other drinks, the ground staff explained the process of check-out and airport transfer scheduled for the next day morning. We were told to keep our check-in luggage duly tagged with the cruise tags outside our hotel rooms by 11:00 pm that night. The ground staff would pick up the luggage and transfer it to the airport for loading onto the charter aircraft. The airport transfer coaches were supposed to depart from the hotel between 4:00 am and 4:30 am.
After the briefing ended, we decided to walk over to Parque Arauco Mall for dinner. It was a pleasant 1.5 km walk. We strolled in the mall and finally decided to savour Pan Asian food at P.F. Chang’s. After finishing the dinner, we walked back to the hotel and decided to call it a day early. We had to get up early the next day. We placed our tagged luggage outside our room and retired to bed.