Crazy Day!

I slept off and on during the flight - never too comfortably. Woke up for good around 6:00, I think. I was in the middle, so I could only catch glimpses of the gorgeous sunrise over the Andes.

When we landed in Santiago, we were very confused about the time. I had obsessed over the time zones and the Daylight Savings Time before we left... according to my research, the U.S. went on Daylight Savings time while we were in flight, and Chile went off Daylight savings Time while we were in flight. This meant that when we sprung forward one hour, Santiago would fall back one hour and we'd end up on the same time. I could never get my outlook calendar to figure it out, though. We were supposed to arrive at 7:00, but we landed at 8:10. The flight crew said we were only a few minutes late and our smart phones indicated different times so we didn't know what time it was. When we finally got through immigration and customs I asked our tour guide what time it was. He said we really landed at 8:10 - more than one hour late according to what Delta told us on our itinerary. As it turns out, due to a water shortage Chile has postponed the end of Daylight Savings Time to April 1st. (Can you figure out why?) Looks like the early April Fool's joke was on us.

But back up - before going through Immigration, we had to pay a reciprocity fee of $140 US each. Nobody could guarantee in advance that there would be working credit card machines (there were), so we went prepared with $3080 cash. They were kind enough to let us pay as one group, but when the woman started counting the cash she began rejecting any bill with a tear or mark on it. By the time she had tossed aside $500, our fluent chaperone told her we didn't have an extra $500 in cash.  By some miracle, they suddenly decided to accept all of our bills.

We had a nice but lengthy city tour (it was an absolutely beautiful day) before a slightly chaotic hotel check-in. We split up for a late lunch. I went with Darryl and Michael to Mercado Central and had a nice meal, a small Pisco Sour (the national drink), and a very nice serenade. It was a bit of a walk over there, but more or less worth it. Didn't have much time for a shower before meeting up with the group and heading out to San Cristobal. Our plan was to walk there, take the Funicular up the mountain, view the sunset, then split up for dinner. (I planned to skip dinner and return to the hotel to rest and work.) Five hours later, I FINALLY made it back to the room. I could write out all the sordid details here, but it's after Midnight and I figure I have to get up at 6:00. Maybe I'll write about it tomrrow - unless I repress the memory that quickly.