Stanley, Falklands to Santiago, Chile
Thursday. 28 January 1999. Stanley Harbor, East Falkland Island. S51°41"; W57° 49". Temperature 51F, very windy
Our group disembarked around 0800 and were bussed into Stanley where we could do some souvenir
shopping. Mostly tee shirts and plush penguin dolls. Stanley is not prosperous
looking.
The construction runs to corrugated tin roofs and plank-and-batten walls. There is a nice
cathedral which we visited to admire the needle work cushions and pipe
organ. Got some
stamps and a canceled first day cover at the post office. There is a bomb-disposal office.
Latizia Ray, one of the expedition members, from Montreal, got herself a land mine map of
Stanley.
The mines are left over from the 1982 Argentinean invasion. An interesting souvenir.
We bussed an hour out to the new military airport along an intermittently paved road, raising great clouds of dust which quickly dissipated in the brisk winds. Lan Chile's 737 arrived at 1230 with a load of passengers for the next expedition and by 1400 we and our duffel were aboard for our flight to Santiago.
Eventually we got underway and had an uneventful 1300 mile flight, passing right over Bariloche, visible clearly, below. We could see Lake Nahuel Haupi, the route of our dusty 270km round-the-lake tour and the snow-covered Orsono volcano.
Upon arrival in Santiago, we were unexpectedly extorted for a $45/head entry fee (payable in cash, US dollars please, exact change only). We got blindsided by this, Special Expeditions failed to tell us anything about fees. It appears the Chileans plan to extort another $18/each to let us out of their country.
Santiago, S33°23"; W70°47" 82F
We're housed at the Sheraton. We changed rooms to obtain larger beds and this seemed to confuse them. Our luggage remained in limbo until after dinner. (Poolside, delicious buffet.) Having bought tee shirts in Stanley, we decided to shower and wear our new purchases to dinner until the Sheraton gets it sorted out.
The luggage was finally delivered with a bottle of wine and a note of apology from the hotel manager. We enjoyed his hospitality.
Friday, 29 January 1999. Santiago, Chile.
We are back in civilization with lavish dinner and breakfast buffets and an H. Stern jewelry shop to tempt the shopping deprived. (Penguins in lapis?) We've signed up for one last bus tour out to a Chilean winery. Memories of wet landings from rubber Zodiacs are fading fast, but some of our gear still smells of penguin.
Alberto was our guide out to the Santa Rita Winery along the Pan America Highway. This is the second largest in Chile (Concha y Toros is the biggest). They have a capacity of some 50 million liters and have a million bottles gathering dust in their cellars. We toured their gardens and were served a delicious lunch with freely flowing wine. We returned to Santiago by 1730 and freshened up back at the Sheraton in preparation for the long haul back up to the northern hemisphere. Alberto spent most of the bus ride time explaining Chilean history. Allende and Pinochet, recently in the news.
American Airlines did not earn any points with its over-crowded 767 (flight 912) from Santiago to Miami. The seating pitch was several inches closer than the MD-11 coming down. Knees got scrunched. To its credit, however, they got us into Miami 25 minutes early (0440, Saturday, 30 January), beating both the LAN Chile flight and United's 777, both scheduled to depart Santiago at the same moment as we.
We crossed the equator at 0315 (0115 EST) west of Quito, Equador at 37,000 ft. moving north at 600mph.
Unlike many of our fellow travelers, we were practically home once we cleared customs at Miami. A short (but expensive) taxi ride got us up to our Ft. Lauderdale apartment by 0545, and in bed shortly thereafter. Later in the day we brought 18 rolls of Kodak film up to Ritz Camera for processing. We'll select a few of the better pictures to decorate this narrative. Paul has 4 hours of video tape which needs to be edited down to a viewable length. This will occupy us for a few weeks.
RGB VERLAG