After a flight of about 2 hours, I arrived in Santiago on Sunday. Flying in on the plane, it is neat to see how the city is situated right in the mountains, and planes have to wind their way in through the mountains to land at the airport. As I was going through customs, I was told I had to go back and pay an entry tax to get into the country. Apparently if you are from the US, Canada, Australia or Mexico, you have to pay a reciprocity tax to get in. I was not pleased to find out that it was $132.00!!! Higher than any of the other 3 countries as well. Airport tax to leave Argentina, and now another to get into Chile. Give me a break.
I cabbed it into the city from the airport, and on the way in, noticed all the flags at half mast. A long, long conversation consisting of broken spanglish ensued with the cab driver, and after a while, I got the story as to why. The Friday previous, a high ranking General in the Chilean Police Force had died in Panama in a helicopter crash, along with his wife. The funeral was today. The police had shut the entire downtown area down, and as a result, I had to walk in about 15 blocks to my hostel .
The hostel itself is very nice and clean, but I was disappointed to find out they allow smoking in the main area. Then again, so does everywhere. Everybody in South America seems to smoke, everywhere, all the time. Airports, restaurants, movie theatres, hostels, all pro-smoking. Oh well, might as well get used to it while I am here.
Tomorrow hopefully I will be able to head into the Andes mountians and do some hiking and exploring. I looked into Easter Island, but it is way too expensive, regrettably.
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2 comments:
Maybe if you're short on money for souveniers you could just bring back Emphysema.
do the easter island tour, you will regret it later.
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