Disembarkation and Santiago – We
were out of our suite in plenty of time to enjoy a last breakfast in the dining
room. Then we found a comfortable place to sit until our tour was announced. As
we were leaving the ship, Larry was called back because we’d left our
binoculars in one of the cabinets in our suite. We still were not last to board
the bus, so no worries. It was a large, comfortable bus, with a great audio
system, so we had no trouble hearing and understanding our guide’s excellent
English. The drive from San Antonio, where we docked, to Santiago was about an
hour, through agricultural country, including many vineyards.
It’s great wine
country.
The last stop of the day was a lovely
little enclave of artisans’ and artists’ shops on the site of a monastery. We
were at the airport 2 hours early for our cleck-in, so found seats (having to
shoo a sleeper’s feet off one of them) and waited. Eventually, we checked in
and cleared security, only to find that our gate had not been announced and
there were no seats available in the central part of the terminal. We wandered
along one very long corridor until we found a place to sit. An hour or so
later, our gate was announced, ‘way down a different corridor. Lots of walking
and lots of waiting. Strangely, as we boarded the plane, our carry-ons were
opened and searched on the ramp [drug smuggling check]. The overnight flight went, as they always do,
slowly. We took off at about 11pm and they served us dinner at either 11:30 pm
or 1:30 am, depending on whether we’d reset our watches. It was quite horrible,
except for the little chocolate bars.
