Thursday, Jan 7, 2010
The plane touched Chilean soil at 9:45am (local) this morning, about ten minutes ahead of schedule, which was OK with me because sleeping on the plane last night was a chore, as usual. In just about an hour, I managed to get thru the long lines of Customs and Immigration, and then the final bag screening. At the last bag screening, I was stopped by one of the Immigration agents because it seems I had forgotten to sign my Declaration form. That was easy to remedy, and then I went out into the main part of the airport and into the hordes of Taxi drivers trying to give me a ride into Santiago at twice the price. Since this isn’t my first rodeo, I pushed my way thru the crowded airport until I found the “TransVip” counter. TransVip is a company that runs shuttle vans from the airport to any place in Santiago, and since they can carry numerous passengers, the fare is much more reasonable. It cost me 6,200 pesos ($12.40) to get me and my entire luggage into Santiago. A fair price in my estimation.
So, by 11:30am local (9:30am EST) I arrived at my Aunts in Santiago. Door to door….22 hours! Once I was settled, I went over to my other Aunts, where my bike is stored, and proceeded to remove the cocoon that the bike had hibernated in for the past ten months. As expected, the BMW started right up. As not expected, I had a nearly flat front tire, but I managed to, very carefully, drive a few blocks to the gas station to take care of that. (note to self….bring the air pump you spent $100 on last year, next time you go to unwrap the bike) I have the pump here, but it was at the other Aunts house at the time.
Now it is 7:10pm here and my Aunt and I are going to go on the nightly ritual walk, something I could really use!
The plane touched Chilean soil at 9:45am (local) this morning, about ten minutes ahead of schedule, which was OK with me because sleeping on the plane last night was a chore, as usual. In just about an hour, I managed to get thru the long lines of Customs and Immigration, and then the final bag screening. At the last bag screening, I was stopped by one of the Immigration agents because it seems I had forgotten to sign my Declaration form. That was easy to remedy, and then I went out into the main part of the airport and into the hordes of Taxi drivers trying to give me a ride into Santiago at twice the price. Since this isn’t my first rodeo, I pushed my way thru the crowded airport until I found the “TransVip” counter. TransVip is a company that runs shuttle vans from the airport to any place in Santiago, and since they can carry numerous passengers, the fare is much more reasonable. It cost me 6,200 pesos ($12.40) to get me and my entire luggage into Santiago. A fair price in my estimation.
So, by 11:30am local (9:30am EST) I arrived at my Aunts in Santiago. Door to door….22 hours! Once I was settled, I went over to my other Aunts, where my bike is stored, and proceeded to remove the cocoon that the bike had hibernated in for the past ten months. As expected, the BMW started right up. As not expected, I had a nearly flat front tire, but I managed to, very carefully, drive a few blocks to the gas station to take care of that. (note to self….bring the air pump you spent $100 on last year, next time you go to unwrap the bike) I have the pump here, but it was at the other Aunts house at the time.
Now it is 7:10pm here and my Aunt and I are going to go on the nightly ritual walk, something I could really use!
No comments:
Post a Comment