SAFE ARRIVAL IN SANTIAGO

Tue, Feb 5, 11:40 AM Santiago time, 9:40 AM Lynchburg Time

Buenos Dios!

Arrived safely and esconsed in Crown Plaza Hotel, Santiago. Splendid old hotel.

Weather very nice. Summer, but not hot. All is fine.

Computer use is free in hotel. Hotel computer. Could use mine with wireless but costs $10 a day.

Nice guide, Philippe.

Had short briefing. Met Vantage tour leaders Sil and Nacho. Longer briefing at 2 PM. Nice Vantage personnel in hotel.

City tour at 3 PM. No charge for this one.Signed up for three more tours not free here over next two days. Winery tour. Night city tour. Ride out east toward, maybe into the Andes.Signed up for two tours in Puenta Arenas. (Next stop.)

Rest time now. Not much though.

I got 5 hours sleep Sunday night. Drove to DC Monday. Did 6 mile walk in corridors at Dulles waiting for plane. 2 hours to Atlanta. Short layover, about 2 hours there. About nine or ten hour flight to Santiago. Helen developed a little stomach trouble but got over it. Two meals on plane.

Sizeable group of fellow toursts with Vantage. Met a few. 3 bus fulls. Buses assigned.

Luggage came through.

Stan had remarked that I had done a lot of preparatory reading, etc. for this trip. I said and I feel the opposite. Did some. Not nearly enough. Lack of time. However, I bought a map and three books about areas to be visited. Got into one of the books only a tiny bit. Used two of the books and the maps with Stan to prepare the maps in this blog. Otherwise books were not cracked. Terrible about not getting books read. Too busy. Extremely slow reader. Fall asleep when I do read for half an hour.

But last night on the red eye I got well into "Antarctic Odyssey: In the footsteps of the south polar exploers" by Graham Collier and Patricia Collier. The first several pages are about the areas where we will be next. Magellan Straight. Beagle Channel. Tierra Del Fuego (An Island, as I learned). Cape Horn. Puenta Arenas. WONDERFUL BOOK!!! Very nice, dramatac, detailed descriptions of sights in incredible area. Wonderful pictures. Nice map of the whole area, which I hope to get onto this blog eventually. Very well written.

:-)

Love,

Bernie