Travel Day: San Pedro to Buenos Aires, Argentina

After a relaxing morning and a good breakfast, we headed out to the bus station where we got on a bus to Calama. It was a beautiful ride with lovely scenery. And then...

Tragedy: There was a terrible car accident between a small truck and a large truck, a  head on collision. The smaller vehicle was smashed downward in the front. From the way it looked, it is unlikely that the driver survived.

Traffic carried on, and we made it to the Calama bus station, where we got a taxi to the airport.

Funny: We had all but run out of Chilean pesos, just small bills and change. Tanya had to explain the U.S. exchange rate to get the driver to accept American dollars. But the guy was nice, and he took it and all our coins and drove us to the airport.

We had a typical flight to Santiago. They even gave us food on the short flight. South American airlines all seem pretty good about that. Anyway,  because we had purchased some really cool knives, we had to check Tanya's bag, so when we arrived in Santiago, of course, we had to make our way down to baggage claim.

Tragedy: A man had collapsed right in front of the stairs down to baggage claim. They had already tried the AED, and they were performing CPR. We think it was probably a heart attack. He was down for a long time. We don't think he survived. It was really sad, this poor man dead right in the middle of the airport while there were hoards of bystanders looking at his bare chest being smashed by first responders for more than 30 minutes.

Because of this, everyone had to take the elevator down, which took a while because even though it is a huge elevator, it was also one of multiple full flights, so there were lots of people. But we got the bag.

We then had to leave the secure area and re check in to our next flight to Buenos Aires. Again, we had to check Tanya's bag, so we just decided to check both bags. But they don't do that until two hours before the flight. So we waited in line, chatted with some nice people, checked our bags, and headed to the international security check for another line. It wasn't so bad because it was moving consistently. The worst part was waiting for the plane. The gate changed a couple of times, and we didn't board until an hour after the plane was supposed to have taken off. But oh well.

Funny: As soon as we got on the plane, they handed out customs cards for us to fill out. Except Tanya didn't get one. We weren't sure why until they came to give us refreshments. The guy looked at Tanya and said, "Que quiere tomar?" She answered. Then he looked at Karis and said, "What would you like to drink?" Yes, they were treating Tanya like a local and Karis like the pale foreigner she is. Tanya calls it "walking while blonde."

It was another easy flight to Buenos Aires, where we got our next stamp in our passports for Argentina. We arrived in the middle of the night, about 1AM, so we had a hostel that had 24 hour check in. Its best feature was the breakfast, but at least we had a place to go. The next morning we went to our real hotel - a bed and breakfast. It was so nice!

More about our first couple of days in the city to come.