Chile & Argentina

Welcome!

What have we (Micha & I) been up to since January 12th, when we left Erfurt? Well, not that much travelling, but rather reading, learning from more experienced globetrotters and trying to figure out our next steps.

How did we get here, to Chile? We have had quite a bit of luck because the trip did not start smoothly! Here´s how we got to our first stop: Santiago de Chile

Erfurt - Frankfurt: the Deutsche Bahn (train) behaved, and we arrived on time. We had more than enough time to check-in at FRAirport – we were actually counting on some sort of delay!

Our flight to Santiago was scheduled to fly over Toronto, with a really long stopover (at least our luggage would make it we thought!). We went directly to the check-in counters, I think we were the first ones to check in that flight… But, we couldn´t! It turns out, that we hadn´t applied (at all!) for the ETA for Canada (entry permit, as German & Spanish citizens do not need a visa for tourism purposes). Our hearts sank: how could this have happened? Months of planning, and we forgot to apply for the ETA? Fortunately, you can apply online and 99.7% of the applications are approved within 2 hours. So were ours… The approval was sent to us within the longest hour of our lives. We checked in in silence, and proceeded to the security check without saying a word. It wasn´t until we boarded that reality hit us again. I even burst out in tears of relief (and happiness) – we made it: in 21 hours, we would be in Santiago!

Due to a heavy snow storm in Toronto we could not land as scheduled and our plane was re-directed to Montreal, where we re-fuelled and waited until we could fly back to Toronto airport. That´s how we spent an extra 5 hours inside the plane and reduced our stopover at Pearson Int. Airport in about 2 hours – at least the entertainment system was good! Micha and I watched each 2 movies, plus a couple of documentaries during these 15 hours, and still slept for at least 5-6 hours!

We did not miss our connecting flight in Toronto, because the 2nd flight was also delayed for a couple of hours. We boarded at 2am (local time, for us it was about 6 am) for the next 11-hour flight to Santiago. Once more, after a first warm meal, we dozed off – there was plenty of space to lie around as the plane wasn´t fully booked (plus so many flights had been cancelled and the corresponding amount of people missed the connection).

On the 13th of January, we were officially in Santiago! We were, but not our bags. We were told that they would arrive the next day. Which turned out to be 3...! Lets just say that Air Canada should definitely work on their customer service in Santiago.

More on Santiago…soon!En savoir plus