We were not looking forward to February 10th. Although we were continuing on our Chilean adventure it is always sad to say goodbye to friends, especially those whom you only get to see every 4-5 years!

We woke up early, dropped the kids off at nursery school as soon as it opened at 8:00am (6:00 D.C. time) and headed off to the airport via Ruta 78.

This was to be my first time at the Domestic Terminal in SCL. It was wonderful. Bright and airy at check-in and the gates. We arrived the airport at about 9:30 for our 11:10am flight to Iquique.

Check-in was quick but not without a bit of LAN inspired insanity. We approached the counters (no line) and were told that we have to check in on a machine (set away from the counters, not like in the States where self-service is at the counters), before we could approach the counter. We try to use the machine and it says it can´t check us in because we are on a special type of ticket. We return to the counter and are again told that we HAVE to use the machines. Fortunately, my friend started talking to one of the LAN supervisors, too quickly and heated for me to catch much of the words, and suddenly LAN realized they could check us in at the counters and accept our bags. This whole process only took maybe 10 minutes but was wholly unnecessary. (In fact and I´ll be posting about it in a conclusion post, LAN has Awesome in-flight service, but it´s ground service is completely inconsistent.)

After check-in we headed to Dunkin Donuts where we all enjoyed coffee until 10:30, when we headed to domestic security. Domestic Security in SCL was so civilized. Shoes stayed on, liquids could be any size, laptops could stay in their bags, personnel very, very polite. For some reason the extra batteries for our noise-canceling headphones caused alarm and my bag was hand-searched by an exceedingly efficient, polite and competent employee, who started by apologizing that my bag had to be checked, explaining why it was being checked, asking me if I would prefer a male to check my bag (I´m male and the security officer who was about to check my bag was female). I told her I appreciated her politeness but I was just fine with her checking my bag. She found the offending AAA´s, ran them back through the X-ray alone and sent me on my way with wishes for good travels and apologies for holding me up. TSA, ARE YOU READING THIS? I FELT JUST AS SAFE IF NOT SAFER THAN WHEN I TRAVEL IN THE US, AND I WAS TREATED POLITELY AND HUMANELY.

Mrs. Dcstudent and I headed first to gate 25, a bus gate, but we were soon changed to a gate upstairs with an airbridge. Just as in Iguazu, boarding was a cluster. US unions would love to have LAN´s work rules. It took no less than 6 people at the gate. Two, at the counter. Two checking boarding passes to make sure we were in the right lines (Preferencial Boarding, Rows 15-29 and Rows 1-14. Two more to scan our boarding passes and send us on our way. It was serious craziness.

We boarded, took our seats and I (surprise fell asleep before we pushed back. My wife tells me that they handed out a very nice snackbox and did two drink services during our 2 and 1/2 hour flight.

Next: Arrival in Iquique