3 Mar: Mendoza (ARG) --> Santiago (CHI) --> Equator
A rather long day ahead for us as we make the journey back home. It's been a great trip and I always say that a goal of any trip is not to get value for money on your travel insurance. So we succeeded.
We checked out of our hotel and went to the airport. We had some ARG pesos to spend and were offered a variety of options in the duty free shop such as below:
Marc and I ended up settling on a wine that we tasted yesterday but cannot obtain in the States, so we'll have to repack our bags again once we get to Santiago. Perhaps more clothes to be ditched?
The plan was to spend the afternoon touring Santiago with a driver, have a nice dinner and then head to the airport for our late flight back to the States. The constant and dramatic changes in climates covered on this trip have started to catch up to me and I was starting to feel a bit under the weather, which seemed like a fabulous way to travel home. Woo woo! Give me some Nyquil please.
Santiago is a pretty city, and is surrounded by mountains and smog. Lots of smog. Not as bad as Los Angeles, but it's there and it's constant per our guide. We had lunch in one of the local food stalls in the central area and we found out that the locals like to watch TV during this time so we were fortunate enough to catch an episode of "Glee" with Lea Michele singing "Let It Go" (our niece, Mollie, would have loved this). Then "Sex and The City" was on, but it was time to start our tour.
We went up to a lookout point to catch some nice views of the city and toured a museum that discussed hallucinogenic snuff kits from a long time ago. Apparently these were popular in our 1st destination, Atacama, but oddly no one offered us any. Hmmm.
After our tour, we went to the hotel that we stored our large bags at prior to Mendoza and re-packed. They were kind enough to let me use the gym to shower before the flights home, so I was happy. We had a couple of farewell cocktails, dinner and then it was time to head to the airport.
Our gate had people ready to go to DFW (our destination) but the sign said MIA. Right. Some confusion especially since we saw one crew board the plane and another crew was waiting to board the plane. It turns out the MIA crew boarded our plane, then were informed they were on the wrong plane, etc.
Somehow we managed to take off on schedule. As you can guess, we made it home safely and the journey was uneventful. Thanks for tuning in to another adventure of Marc and Jill. It was an exhausting journey but a worthwhile one. We appreciated all of your likes, comments, emails, private messages, etc. We were especially grateful for all of your well wishes for Marc when he wasn't feeling so well.
We checked out of our hotel and went to the airport. We had some ARG pesos to spend and were offered a variety of options in the duty free shop such as below:
Marc and I ended up settling on a wine that we tasted yesterday but cannot obtain in the States, so we'll have to repack our bags again once we get to Santiago. Perhaps more clothes to be ditched?
The plan was to spend the afternoon touring Santiago with a driver, have a nice dinner and then head to the airport for our late flight back to the States. The constant and dramatic changes in climates covered on this trip have started to catch up to me and I was starting to feel a bit under the weather, which seemed like a fabulous way to travel home. Woo woo! Give me some Nyquil please.
Santiago is a pretty city, and is surrounded by mountains and smog. Lots of smog. Not as bad as Los Angeles, but it's there and it's constant per our guide. We had lunch in one of the local food stalls in the central area and we found out that the locals like to watch TV during this time so we were fortunate enough to catch an episode of "Glee" with Lea Michele singing "Let It Go" (our niece, Mollie, would have loved this). Then "Sex and The City" was on, but it was time to start our tour.
We went up to a lookout point to catch some nice views of the city and toured a museum that discussed hallucinogenic snuff kits from a long time ago. Apparently these were popular in our 1st destination, Atacama, but oddly no one offered us any. Hmmm.
After our tour, we went to the hotel that we stored our large bags at prior to Mendoza and re-packed. They were kind enough to let me use the gym to shower before the flights home, so I was happy. We had a couple of farewell cocktails, dinner and then it was time to head to the airport.
Our gate had people ready to go to DFW (our destination) but the sign said MIA. Right. Some confusion especially since we saw one crew board the plane and another crew was waiting to board the plane. It turns out the MIA crew boarded our plane, then were informed they were on the wrong plane, etc.
Somehow we managed to take off on schedule. As you can guess, we made it home safely and the journey was uneventful. Thanks for tuning in to another adventure of Marc and Jill. It was an exhausting journey but a worthwhile one. We appreciated all of your likes, comments, emails, private messages, etc. We were especially grateful for all of your well wishes for Marc when he wasn't feeling so well.