Lachine, Quebec, Canada
Bienvenue! / Welcome!
South America / Antarctic Cruise 2004
Santiago
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At Pierre Elliott Trudeau (Dorval) airport Tuesday, Jan. 27, we met several other tour participants,
identifiable by the red winter jackets that Craig had sent everyone for warmth in Antarctica. We needed
them in Montreal and in the southern areas of South America, as well. We travelled from Montreal to Santiago Tuesday / Wednesday, Jan. 27 / 28 via New York and Miami, arriving Santiago early Wednesday morning, where tour members from other cities were also arriving. Chile has an entry fee (US$55 for Canadians) which has to be paid in cash, so our first line-up was to pay the fee. Craig had included this fee in their package price and sent us the cash beforehand - talk about hand-holding! Once the entry fee was paid we boarded buses arranged by Craig and had a brief tour of Santiago on the way to the hotel. |
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David Craig in the striped tee shirt. There seem to be more drivers / guides than buses! |
| Santiago, the capital of Chile founded in 1541, is a city of some five million residents located about fifty kilometres from the Pacific Ocean, with the Andes mountains a constant backdrop through the haze. On the bus tour we made a stop at the main square, where the following photos were taken. |
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At the hotel the rooms were ready and we then had some
time to explore on our own before supper. Marg and I went looking for postage stamps, an ATM and
a bottle of water. We quickly discovered that the bit of Spanish that we tried to learn last
fall had evaporated. We finally found a post office, but it was closed. We also found some
water using hand signals. We did manage to order a beer in a local café. Across the street
from our hotel we took the following photos. The first shows our Hotel San Francisco.
The main building is to the rear of the entrance building. |
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A delicious supper for the 200+ tour members was provided by Craig in a large tent set up
specifically for us in the parking lot adjacent to the hotel. The next morning as we prepared
to depart we saw it being taken down. The tent can be seen (if you look closely) at the left in
the first of the above photos. Inside the tent the décor was more in keeping with a fancy dining room than a tent. We had a delicious dinner preceded by Pisco Sours and accompanied by a seemingly bottomless wine supply. We also met a few of our new travelling companions: 1. Fran & Ron Moorman from Belleville and Mona Bentley from Bancroft. 2. Pat & Harry Spaulding from Halifax and Lee & George Osborne from Tecumseh, Ont. |
| Introduction | | Santiago | | Valparaiso | | Puerto Montt |
| Puerto Chacabuco | | Punta Arenas | | Ushuaia | | Antarctica |
| Falkland Islands | | Buenos Aires | | Montevideo | | Rio de Janeiro |
| MS Amsterdam |
| The Lemmers Lynns |