Dec 30 - Black Friday
So we arrived in Chile today at about 2:30am local time. Our first thought was this country is expensive. We each had to pay US$55 for some immigration reciprocity thing that is good for the life of the passport (see below). Then we had to pay close to US$80 for the most expensive airport taxi ride I have ever had. I´m pretty sure we got ripped off. Then another US$110 for the hotel. So within our first hour in Chile, we'd spent about US$300, which would have lasted us about 5 days or more in Guatemala.
But after a quick rest in what was by far the nicest place we have stayed in this trip, we headed out. It was a beautiful sunny day in Santiago, and the city seemed very clean and civilized and things were looking up. Our plan for today was to head to the coast to Valparaiso and stay there a couple of days for the New Year's eve celebrations, which are supposed to be some of the best in Chile. We knew we were going to have a hard time getting a place to stay as we have had no luck booking places through the internet, email, etc so far. So we decided to rent a car in Santiago and drive to Valparaiso so that we could go from place to place checking availability etc. The only vehicle available was a little pick-up truck, but we figured it would work.
We made it to Valparaiso and started our search for hotels/hostals. It took a while to get our bearings, but then we just started going through the lists we had in the various guide books and tourist info we'd collected on the way. We finally found one that seemed ok - I waited in the truck while Tanis checked out the rooms, etc. She figured it was ok so we locked the truck up and took our packs up to the room. We were only in there about 15-20 minutes and the truck was parked right across the street, but when we got back, someone had broken in the passenger side and taken the little bags we had left in the truck. Our own fault for leaving them in there. But they got my little back pack which had some guide books and all our spanish course material, Tanis' purse thingy which had our passports, camera, her credit and bank cards, drivers licence, etc. and a few hundred dollars of cash, and another bag which we had packed separately to ship home which had most of our Guatemala souvenirs and all the Guatemala souvenirs we had bought for friends & family. It also sucks because our camera had all of our pictures from Tikal and our last week in Guatemala. So we got to spend the rest of the day notifying visa, the police, etc. Thankfully, the son of the owner of the hostal we're staying at speaks some english and took us to the police station and helped us with that (which was quite the process). The police in Valparaiso seem pretty disinterested and unhelpful, so if it hadn't been for him, probably no report would have been filed, not that its likely to do much good anyways.
With the holidays and general Cayman retail banking service, who knows when we're going to get new visas. Plus the Canadian embassy isn't open until Jan. 3rd so without passports, travelling by plane (which we're supposed to do on Jan. 8th) might be difficult. It's funny that we made it through 4 weeks in Guatemala which has a something of a reputation for being a bit dangerous with no problems whatsoever. And then within about 13 hours of being in a 'civilized' country, we get robbed. But we've learned our lesson.
Anyways, there probably won't be much for pictures posted for awhile. Partly because of no camera and partly because we're going to spend the rest of our money getting blind drunk on cheap Chilean wine. Hasta luego!
But after a quick rest in what was by far the nicest place we have stayed in this trip, we headed out. It was a beautiful sunny day in Santiago, and the city seemed very clean and civilized and things were looking up. Our plan for today was to head to the coast to Valparaiso and stay there a couple of days for the New Year's eve celebrations, which are supposed to be some of the best in Chile. We knew we were going to have a hard time getting a place to stay as we have had no luck booking places through the internet, email, etc so far. So we decided to rent a car in Santiago and drive to Valparaiso so that we could go from place to place checking availability etc. The only vehicle available was a little pick-up truck, but we figured it would work.
We made it to Valparaiso and started our search for hotels/hostals. It took a while to get our bearings, but then we just started going through the lists we had in the various guide books and tourist info we'd collected on the way. We finally found one that seemed ok - I waited in the truck while Tanis checked out the rooms, etc. She figured it was ok so we locked the truck up and took our packs up to the room. We were only in there about 15-20 minutes and the truck was parked right across the street, but when we got back, someone had broken in the passenger side and taken the little bags we had left in the truck. Our own fault for leaving them in there. But they got my little back pack which had some guide books and all our spanish course material, Tanis' purse thingy which had our passports, camera, her credit and bank cards, drivers licence, etc. and a few hundred dollars of cash, and another bag which we had packed separately to ship home which had most of our Guatemala souvenirs and all the Guatemala souvenirs we had bought for friends & family. It also sucks because our camera had all of our pictures from Tikal and our last week in Guatemala. So we got to spend the rest of the day notifying visa, the police, etc. Thankfully, the son of the owner of the hostal we're staying at speaks some english and took us to the police station and helped us with that (which was quite the process). The police in Valparaiso seem pretty disinterested and unhelpful, so if it hadn't been for him, probably no report would have been filed, not that its likely to do much good anyways.
With the holidays and general Cayman retail banking service, who knows when we're going to get new visas. Plus the Canadian embassy isn't open until Jan. 3rd so without passports, travelling by plane (which we're supposed to do on Jan. 8th) might be difficult. It's funny that we made it through 4 weeks in Guatemala which has a something of a reputation for being a bit dangerous with no problems whatsoever. And then within about 13 hours of being in a 'civilized' country, we get robbed. But we've learned our lesson.
Anyways, there probably won't be much for pictures posted for awhile. Partly because of no camera and partly because we're going to spend the rest of our money getting blind drunk on cheap Chilean wine. Hasta luego!
posted by Tanis & Casey at 7:25 AM
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