Patagonian cruise, circum-Andean drive and a Pacific island hop back

[RooFlyer]

If trip reports had a sub title, this one would be "When trip reports Collide"

Today I start on a trip to South America which involves two different AFF meet-ups.

First, the flights:



Virgin Australia domestic, then LATAM Sydney to Santiago via Auckland, then back with stops in Easter Island and Tahiti and then Air New Zealand onwards to Melbourne via Auckland again. Business except the domestic legs. I'm doing most of the trip with a couple of friends. If anyone is in the SYD Qantas Flounge Monday morning, I'd so much appreciate some-one guesting in one of my friends!

After a couple of days in Santiago, we meet up with JohnM and hit the road south to Puerto Montt (Alamo permitting :shock: ) where we join a cruise on the Patagonian fjords for a week, going as far south as the San Rafael glacier. At the end of the cruise, my friends part company with us for a trip to Peru, whilst JohnM and I head east over the southern Andes and then spend a week or so driving up the Argentinian side of the Andes to the Mendoza area (not hard to guess that one) for a couple of days wine indulgence before crossing the Andes again west, and finishing in Santiago. Rumour has it that juddles may be lurking by the side of the road somewhere in southern Chile.

There, JohnM continues his own trip and my friends re-join me and we fly to Easter Island. Denali and +1 are on the same flight , so we'll have a mid air AFF catch-up and hopefully some more on the island. We only have a couple of days there before we head on to Tahiti for a few days of end-of-trip resort relaxation on Moorea (Sofitel, not Bora Bora ). Then, back home.

It'll be a month, and there is a potential wrinkle in the timing of picking up the rental car, getting a permit to go into Argentina and JohnM arriving, but we'll see how we go.

Here is the cruise and the drive (courtesy of JohnM's current Trip Report )

 

[Daver6]

Checked-in here

 

[TomVexille]

Onboard for this

 

[ExpeditionCruiser]

Looking forward to following your travels.

 

[RooFlyer]

Welcome to AFF ExpeditionCruiser

 

[ExpeditionCruiser]

Welcome to AFF ExpeditionCruiser

Thanks very much! Looking forward to contributing where I can.

 

[VPS]

BP scanned - hope checking out your TR doesn't delay the finalisation of mine

 

[Major]

I have been waiting for this one ... a great trip ahead

 

[drron]

I'll be following close behind.

 

[RooFlyer]

Standard Virgin flights HBA-MEL-SYD and standard Rydges at Sydney International. As I mentioned, I'm travelling with a couple of friends who are doing whY, with no status. Not being able to rustle up some-one to guest the second of them into the Flounge, I snuck in for a quick brekkie before joining them in Siberia AKA the terminal concourse.:shock:




Here's the ride - LATAM B787




Both the soft and hard J products on the flights SYD-AKL-SCL were 'good' that is, not great but not bad either. the cabin is a 2-2-2 config. the seat roominess isn't bad, but there's not a lot of storage space.






On the SYD-SCL leg, something I experienced the other time I flew this with LAN. The crew are good and friendly but they very much over-service the Spanish speakers, and under-service the Anglos. I'm sure this is not deliberate on their part - its just that they engage much more easily with the Spanish speakers and so there might be three points of contact there, for every one to an Anglo.

The meals (no pics, sorry) were pretty good and the wines a bit mixed - mainly Chilean and Argentinian,

 

[amaroo]

Excellent! A few extra places I can visit off the back of another RooFlyer TR

 

[RooFlyer]

On board, pre departure drink is Roederer Brut Premiere which was unexpected, but welcome.





The controls are in the centre console; there is a small privacy screen, which both sides have, which is a god idea. Below that is the small space for a water bottle and personal items, which have to rest on the IFE controller. There is quite a large space below the foot rest, but inaccessible whilst buckled up or with the bed deployed.

The bed isn't that long -I'm about 5'10 in the old money and if I stretched, my head was against the back and my feet were touching the end. Elbow room on the side of the privacy screen, but not on the other. Overall, not a great bed, but not awful either. Headphones are non noise cancelling.




Here are the menus. no food shots, but the meals were pretty nice - no complaints there.

 

[ExpeditionCruiser]

Rooflyer, from the map you posted it appears your fjord cruise will be on the Skorpios II? If so, looking forward to hearing all about it - and lots of pictures too please!

 

[bPeteb]

Looking forward to this!

 

[RooFlyer]

Rooflyer, from the map you posted it appears your fjord cruise will be on the Skorpios II? If so, looking forward to hearing all about it - and lots of pictures too please!

Yes, that's the one. Forecast unfortunately isn't great at the moment.

 

[JohnM]

Puff, puff - bringing up the rear. Or should that be sort of ahead of you? Recently arrived at LAX from ORD and LAX-xJFK-SCL at 0700h tomorrow.

Roederer has been the LA champagne for as long as I can remember! I'll check it out again on the LA B787 tomorrow evening.

 

[RooFlyer]

I've been to Santiago a couple of times, but never had a good look round, so this was the opportunity. On our first full day we joined the "Free Santiago Tour" which lasted 4 hours, with a 30 minute gap in the middle for lunch/sit down/drink. It was excellent; lots of side stories in addition to the land marks visited. "Suggested tip" was 7,000 CLP or about $14/head which was good value.

We started at the Plaza des Armes, always the central landmark in this part of the world. the Cathedral, founded in the 1500s, but re-built several times after earthquakes; this one dates from the 1700s




A former presidential Palace, now the Post Office:




We got told the story that the Spanish were originally going to found the capital of Chile in the south. However they got stuck in the current location due to the Mapuche people to the south, who resisted fiercely and, we were told in fact were never conquered by the Spaniards, or anyone else, and were reluctant participants in Chilean independence in 1810.

Unable to progress south, Pedro de Valdivia set up camp at present day Santiago in 1541. He was later captured by the Mapuche and never seen again. Check out the pic on the left. What's wrong with this sculpture of Valdiva? (Answer below). On the right, some 'balancing' art - a sculpture representing the Mapuche, and other indigenous peoples. A "broken face".





There are a number of footpath coffee shops downtown, but our guide said the coffee is awful. Apparently in the 1970s, one entrepreneur decided what he needed to attract patrons was some 'angle' ... so coffee was served by ladies in short dresses. The coffee shops were known as 'coffee with legs' Of course some-one took it further and you got coffee served by scantily clad ladies (hey, I'm just recounting the story!!). then the regulators came in, and we now have stand-up coffee shops outside, and the 'scantied' relegated to inside behind darkened glass:




Meanwhile ... the former Mint, now Presidential Palace (office only, the President lives in her own house). Former place of the first Socialist head of state anywhere .. Salvador Allende who came to power in 1970 wanting a socialist society, but not won by violence. After three years the armed forces got sick of him (not to mention the USA) and staged a coup. A couple of tanks roiled up on this lawn and fired into the Palace and the air force bombed it, after a warning to evacuate. Allende was found dead inside.

This brought Augusto Pinochet to power, the dictator from 1973 to 1981. Under the combination of a plebiscite and pressure from Pope John Paul II, Pinochet retired but became a Senator-for-life. Her was later arrested and was pending trial when he died in 1990 (that's a horrible brief summary). Anyway, Chile had a nasty dictatorship, like the Argentine one for quite a while.



Oh, the statue? The horse has no reigns. We were told that this was a metaphor for Valdivia's military style.

 

[RooFlyer]

Continuing on Santiago. You can see we had fantastic weather ... maxima of high 20s-30ish. (its not going to last )

Statue of Allende




The Fine Arts Museum



University of Chile




On the left, the shop where Bill Clinton popped in for a diet coke. You could say the owner is capitalising on it a bit .. On the right, the gift of Argentina for Chile's 100th anniversary in 1910. its called '4 boys playing' - but again, a story. I haven't photographed it from the right angle; imagine you are vewing it a bit to the left. So that's Chile on the left; Argentina to the right and of course Argentina is pushing Chile. That's Peru on top of Chile having a go, with Bolivia in the back-ground, helping Peru.




More 100th anniversary gifts. On the left, from France (with the chicken .. of course); on the right - USA (yes, its a bust of Lincoln) - something about freeing the slaves.



Actually, the Centenary was a bit of a downer for Chile. With heads of state from around the world visiting, the President of Chile died a week before, so everyone went to the funeral. Then the Vice President, the new President, died of flu he caught at the funeral, a few days later.

The Bicentenary in 2010 didn't fare much better. Tthey had a huge earthquake a week before.

 

[RooFlyer]

Continuing the free walking tour:

LH pic is a building built by an Argentinian telecom in the 1980s. They built it as a (then) mobile phone - basically a brick with an antenna!!




In the middle of the city is a knob of rock which was planted out as a Centenary project and is now a nice refreshing walk - albeit with lots of steps. Cerro Santa Lucia. RH pic is "the German fountain" - again, a Centenary gift.

 

[RooFlyer]

We are staying at the Novotel Viticura - its in the NE part of the city, just across from the very business Las Condes area. Viticura is embassies and gated apartment blocks - really quite nice. Its only about a 6-7,000 CLP (A$12-14) taxi ride to the city; 15 mins approx. A metro ride is only about A$1.5, but the nearest metro is a 30 min walk away.

The view out the hotel window, on the LH and one of the metro statins on the RH. The metro is very good; lots of services, air-con cars, and cheap!




That evening we asked the Novotel concierge for a dining recommendation. First choice was booked out (but we just went there tonight - wow!), but next choice Civico in Las COndes; 10 min taxi away, was a great experience. I think its a chain, but no less quality for that. Here is the menu. To convert CLP to A$ double the thousand amount and call it dollars (5,000 CLP = A$10). Here, as is common, "$" means CLP (Chilean pesos), so the first price is 4,100 CLP or about A$8.20




I chose the gazpacho with avocado and it was fantastic. the avocado's hollowed area was stuffed with tomato, nuts etc. Amazing flavours and textures.




Then the main course. Oh, wow. We learned that pork was a big thing in Chile (German immigrants last century), so a couple of us tried it. Half a pig!! Huge portion of pink, slow cooked pork, falling off the bone, with a crispy skin. Now, a lot of what you see in the pic was big bones, but it was still way too much to eat. Tender, juicy, not your usual pork dish at all.



Really recommended if you are near one.