Chapter 2 - 20-22 December 2018 - Chile

Chapter 2 (20-22nd December – Chile)

So as I start to type it’s actually Christmas Eve and I really thought I would have had plenty of time to keep my log up to date. I hadn’t reckoned on everyone making sure I haven’t been bored to date! Anyhow I’ll catch up; after all Christmas Day is ahead.
So we walked into Chile on Wednesday night after a long flight. Immigration consisted of filling in a short customs form and then handing it over with passports after a short 5 min queue. Unless you’re Australian. Australians have a special desk where they part with around $100 to enter – this is known as a reciprocal entry fee – in other words – “you shaft us so we’ll shaft you”. This my friends  is the shape of things to come post Brexit. Our 90 day entry was free and painless. The hotel was next to the terminal (IHG points this time) and the comfortable beds very welcome.

Thursday morning was gloriously sunny forecast to be around 30C in Santiago. That would have been poor preparation for the Falklands. So it was time to hop another plane three hours south to Punta Arenas – the southernmost city (airport wise) in Chile. Flights from here depart for the South Pole! The plane as full of healthy looking types (annoying twats) heading for adventure in Patagonia. For us it was less than 48 hours to recover and acclimatise to 18 hour daylight. We left the plane to the chaos of everyone waiting to get on the plane stood up in your way (no separate exit channel) so we fought our way to baggage reclaim and eventually were reunited with all our bags. Doing that as a team was a big mistake.

In the meantime everyone not with priority baggage had of course got their bags first and headed out. That meant others had managed to get ahead of me for car hire. Now don’t get me wrong I have no problem waiting my turn. Unfortunately in Punta this means you have one person on the Avis desk specially trained in moving just about quick enough that you don’t need a time lapse camera to notice. There were two couples ahead of us. It took her 90 min before I got my car. I kid you firkin not. The situation to be fair to her was not helped by the fact that they were both Chinese customers so everyone was speaking English badly (the car hire lady’s English being about 50% better than my crap Spanish - which is all thanks to watching “Dora the Explorer”; with the kids 15 years ago). Add to that the fact that her customers could not drive manual gearbox cars and she had tried to give them manual (or £100 extra a day for an automatic). When each was finally processed she then left the desk with them to go off to the car park to find and check over the car (20 min more). So by the time we left the airport the Wood family was tired and rather fraught.

The drive to the city was simple enough and I had the sense to have brought along my trusty satnav. The road was quiet until we reached the city – at that point we joined the jam of traffic negotiating the one way grid based system. But we slowly got where we need to be and checked into the hotel.

Dinner was well planned from trip-advisor reviews and we headed off to the restaurant – far from all others but discovered it had closed early! So we wondered back toward town and “Dino’s Pizza”. That wont be winning any awards but it at least filled tired empty stomachs and lessened me of £50 of Chilean pesos in cash (the only place that didn’t take a card). We headed back to the hotel followed by the friendly stray dogs that roam the city trying to befriend humans generally heading their way for protection from other dogs.  This place really had the feel of a frontier town – I doubt we will ever be any further south unless we make it to the Antarctic peninsula some day.

On the Friday morning we had a leisurely start and breakfast. I even found bacon! While others head for the National Parks some 6 hours away we had the time only for the local attractions – Fort Bulnes (no. 2 trip advisor) and the graveyard (no. 1). The fort was a 40 min drive south and ended in a gravel road with plenty of potholes. The entry was an eye

watering £60 for the four of us. The fort is the first southern settlement in the area by the Chileans and sort of explains the strange land split between Chile and Argentina in this part of the world. I noted that the ship which brought the settlers had been captained by Chilean Rear-Admiral “Juan Williams” – formerly John Williams and later the name became even more Hispanicised (I new word I made up) as Juan Guillermos. This looks like one Welshman keen to take on a new identity! Anyway if you take control in these parts then you control the Straits of Magellan which is a shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific avoiding the Cape of Good Horn – that is a useful waterway. The fort itself was something like the Alamo – being wooden and with British carpenters in the mix to. There was a nice enough walk with decent views too.

After lunch (see fun fact below) we headed back to town and eventually to the no. 1 (free) tourist attraction that was the graveyard! Yes very bizarre. Most of the graves are actually mausoleums varying in size and elegance. Who said you can’t take your money with you!
During the day I had a bit of surprise in that I discovered that another member of our local sub aqua club was actually in Punta too. Simon Morley works with the British Antarctic survey and based for a few months in the city. We arranged to meet that evening.

Following dinner at the hotel (I couldn’t face the streets again) we met Simon for a drink or two before turning in. Tomorrow was an early start again to catch the last leg across to the Falklands. Our slumber was disturbed by hours as the streets turned into an overnight race track for the boy racers. Apparently at night the many traffic lights in down are disabled so it gets louder. So the choice was sweltering room with closed windows or listen to the silencer free mayhem. We tried both. The racers had probably given up by 3am. We were at breakfast by 7.30 and bacon today had been replaced by chicken dippers. I decided to pass.

We had an uneventful trip to the airport where we would hopefully catch our flight without issue. Hopefully because in the previous four weeks it had been delayed by 24hrs on ¾ occasions! This is because UK Health & Safety governs the Airforce base in Mount Pleasant and Northerly winds cause a theoretical risk of “rotor winds”. Not the sort of thing to bother Chilean pilots used to the conditions of Andes flying but obviously more than enough to give the RAF concern. So rotor winds=closed runway and no flight. Today we would be lucky.
We parked the hire car and I took the keys to drop off. Unsurprisingly there was a huge queue at the AVIS desk and nobody manning it. The lady at the front got very excited when I approached thinking I was staff – I corrected her misconception and shared my experience with her. At least she was at the front so that whenever the AVIS staff member had finished breakfast she may get her car in the next 4 hrs or then again she may still be there waiting. I was having none of it and just left my keys with a note on the desk!

The flight check in area was similar carnage. Fortunately my British Airways card granted

us access to the priority queue which would only take an hour or so! When we got to the front we turned away as 100 min before the flight was far too soon! We had an awful coffee in the café then tried again. The screen informed us that our flight LA895 was on time.

Unfortunately its destination was listed as Puerto Natales and not Mount Pleasant FK. Anyway you mustn’t let minor details like that worry you. The lady at check in in assured us it was actually going to the Falklands and that we were lucky – “It’s usually cancelled”.

The flight was half empty (apparently it is either half full or packed); surprisingly for a pre Christmas date. Immigration out of Chile was simple enough again. We were on time and on the way to the Falklands!

Today’s fun fact. Chile’s National dish claims to be a stew called Curanto. This is not true. In reality it is a toasted cheese and ham sandwich. Breville must rely on this market place!

Merry Christmas – coming soon penguins various.