Summer Is Here

Luis and Miriam riding back to Santiago

Thu. Jan, 5

The flight from Toronto to New York JFK, and from JFK to Santiago went off without a hitch. Both flights arrived ahead of schedule. From New York to Santiago, I flew on LAN Chile Airlines. The thing I like about LAN Chile is that the service onboard is top notch.  The food is good, you get to eat with real live metal utensils and the wine is at no extra charge. Where do you get that on US Airlines?

I’ve been in Santiago now for two days, and have been fairly busy. Yesterday I tried to get the motorcycle registered, but I was told that it had to be inspected before I could register it, so tomorrow I am taking the bike to Rancagua, a city an hour south of Santiago, where my friend Guillermo lives. Guillermo, if you remember rescued me from the Atacama Desert two years ago. Well, he knows someone at the inspection station who will inspect the bike for me and I won’t have to wait three hours to get it done like it takes in Santiago. I would rather ride the hour to Rancagua than spend three hours in line just to inspect a motorcycle! Other than that, not much going on.

Guillermo did tell me that we have a three day (week end) trip planed for a week from tomorrow. The trip will include Guillermo and his wife Veronica (Vero), Luis and his wife Miriam (Vonchi), no idea how they get that out of Miriam, and yours truly. On Friday the 13th we will leave Santiago and head south on the Pan-American Highway to the town of Los Angeles approximately six hours south of Santiago. Luis’ brother lives there and is planning a cookout Chilean style for the group.

The following day, we will head south to the towns of Victoria, Traiguen and Lumaco. One of my Aunts has a ranch near Traiguen and my Father and my three Aunts were born in Traiguen. I know the town well. Continuing on, we will ride to an Italian restaurant called Don Primo where we will stop for lunch.

After lunch we will ride toward the Pacific Ocean and work our way north to the city of Concepcion, a city that was hard hit by the 2010 earthquake here in Chile. We spend the night there.

Sunday we ride north along the Ocean to the towns of Dichato, Quirihue, Cauquenes and Pelluhue. The town of Dichato was all but wiped off the map by the Tsunami that followed the earthquake in 2010. Lunch in Pullehue at the restaurant “Blanca Reyes”

After lunch we will ride east to the town of Talca and turn north back to Santiago.

Should be a good ride.