The links to pictures in this thread are 800x600. At the bottom is a list of the same links but in small size (400x300) if you have a slow connection.


A few weeks ago my brother and I took a nine day trip to Chile. My ticket was from AA’s Fly Twice to California, Fly Free, and his was an award ticket from my account.

When AA offered this promotion, Delta matched it (and maybe other airlines). I decided to fly the promotional tickets on AA rather than Delta in order to get MRTC. MRTC isn’t a large amount of extra legroom, but I figured it would be worth it on a long flight. I’m 6’ 3”, and my brother is two inches taller than I.


Friday, September 17

Due to award availability, we had to fly into DFW in the morning with a 12 hour layover before the flight to SCL. I’ve been to DFW many, many times and had no interest in hanging around DFW for 12 hours, so I chose to rent a car.

Enterprise had a reasonable rate of $15 a day for a compact, so I made a reservation two days prior. I had rented from Enterprise once before and didn’t get the pushy insurance sell that I had read about on FlyerTalk.

The lady at the desk asked me if I wanted to rent an SUV for “only” $15 more. I thought, “You want me to pay double so I can waste more gasoline?” but said, “No, thanks.” She said, “OK, I will give you a free upgrade to a pickup.” I said, “I don’t like driving pickup trucks. That’s why I rented a compact.” She insisted on giving us the pickup truck, so I gave up and accepted it.

Lo and behold, as we walk out to the vehicle, there is a compact car. She pointed it out and said, “That’s the car you reserved.” I said, “Can I drive the compact car instead?” She refused to rent the compact car to us.

The next thing she did was give me the hard insurance sell. She said that in Texas you MUST have liability insurance, which costs $9.00 a day. Luckily I brought my insurance card with me (wasn’t sure if I would need it in Chile), so I showed it to her. Unfortunately I brought the card from the previous policy period, which had expired last month.

This stupid lady made me go back in the office and call my insurance company and have them fax over a copy of my current policy. No other rental agency has ever done this. All they do is ask you if you want to buy the insurance, and if you say no, that’s the end of it. This idiot Enterprise agent gave me a pickup truck that I didn’t want and wasted 30 minutes of my time on their insurance scam. I will NEVER use Enterprise again.

We drove to Arlington (south of DFW), where we used to live. We stopped at Waffle House for breakfast and then drove to our old house. The tree in the front yard has grown quite a bit since we moved (new construction in 1986 when we moved in).

We returned the rental car to DFW and went to terminal A. A three hour delay was posted on the monitor! Dang it, we had a 2.5 hour connection in SCL. At the gate, no announcement was made as to the reason for the delay. No apology was offered. They didn’t even make an announcement that the flight was delayed! All they did was post the delay on the monitor. I asked an agent what was going on, and she had no idea. She said the only information in the system was that the aircraft was coming from LAX and was scheduled to arrive at 11:09 PM.

I had made a reservation with Budget for a rental car in Punta Arenas about a week earlier. When I discovered the AA flight was delayed, I called Budget because I wasn’t sure if they would be open that late. The person on the phone said the office closes at 10 PM (or 10:30 PM, something like that). I said that I may not make the flight that arrives at 4:30 PM, and if so, I will arrive at 11:20 PM. He said that if the LanChile flight is cancelled, the office will know about it and wait for you to arrive on the evening flight.

I said that the problem is not the LanChile flight but the AA flight that connects to it. I said that I won’t know if I will arrive at 4:30 PM or 11:20 PM until I arrive in Santiago, and I am not confident in my ability to use the local phone system in Spanish. I asked him if there was a way to ask the office to wait for me to arrive at 11:20 PM if I don’t show up at 4:30 PM. His reply was “Do you know if the LanChile flight has been cancelled yet?” I repeated the problem and he STILL did not understand. I said to just forget the whole thing and cancel the reservation.

The estimated departure time was 11:59 PM, and we actually left the gate about 30 minutes after that. At least the headrest and legroom on the AA 767-300 was decent.

One thing I thought odd was that the flight attendants left the cabin lights on during take-off, and after take-off, they walked around the cabin and closed the window shades. I was resting (eyes closed but not asleep) at the time and heard the sound of the flight attendant closing the window shade. After she was a few rows away, I raised the window shade. I have no idea what the point was of turning on all the lights and closing the window shades on a night flight.

Dinner was delicious (sorry, don’t remember what it was). I ate everything except a few bites of salad.

I got five hours of sleep on this flight, which is pretty good for coach. After sunrise, I took a few pictures of the mountains and the landing.

Point of reference – some airports in Chile I will refer to later are as follows:

south of SCL (Santiago):
PMC Puerto Montt
BBA Balmaceda
PUQ Punta Arenas
ZCO Temuco
CCP Concepcion

north of SCL:
LSC La Serena
CPO Copiapo
ANF Antofagasta
IQQ Iquique
ARI Arica

Saturday, September 18

We were planning to take LanChile (LanExpress, whatever) SCL-PMC-BBA-PUQ, arriving at 4:30 PM. Because we arrived about 20 minutes before departure, we had to take the next flight to PUQ, which leaves SCL at 7:00 PM and arrives PUQ at 11:20 PM with a stop in PMC.

In the immigration hall, there was a couple next to us at the booth where you pay entry fees. They were having a fit. Didn’t they find out about the $100 entry fee when they bought their tickets? It is pretty steep, but then we charge Chileans 100 non-refundable dollars just to apply for a visa. It is idiotic IMHO, but whining to the clerk doesn’t solve any problems.

There was no line for immigration or customs, and we were quickly on our way to the terminal for our eight hour layover. I didn’t feel like paying for luggage storage and taking the bus into Santiago, so we stayed at the airport the whole day.

I had placed Dunkin’ Donuts on a lifetime boycott a couple of years ago because of consistently old donuts and watery coffee. We ate at a restaurant at the airport but were getting hungry in the afternoon. I decided to temporarily lift my boycott, hoping that Dunkin’ Donuts in Chile might be an exception to the rule that they are to serve donuts at least two days after cooking them. As it turns out, they actually cook the donuts throughout the day in the back of the store! They were delicious.

Finally 6 PM (referred to as 18:00 there) rolled around, and we went through security in the national departures terminal. There were only a couple of people in front of us, and it took about 30 seconds to get through. There were no power-tripping, rude screeners enforcing a litany of stupid rules. It was quite pleasant – take out coins and keys, put your bag in the X-ray, and walk through the metal detector. Amazing! Why can’t we do this in the US?

The LanChile flight was very nice. I paid $150 roundtrip per person to go 1,400 miles, and we got a pre-departure mint, a sandwich on one flight and a hot meal on the other flight. The flight left on time and arrived on time. The flight attendants were friendly and professional with a smart-looking uniform. Why can’t US based airlines do this?

Punta Arenas was very cold and windy! Because I had cancelled my reservation with Budget, we took a taxi to downtown Punta Arenas for 6,000 pesos ($10). Rather than mosey around downtown looking for a cheap hotel, I looked through my guidebook for the nearest cheap hotel before I froze in the wind. Luckily, just a block away was the Hostal Fitz Roy for 15,000 pesos a night ($24).

This place had a shared bath, but there was only one other person staying there at the time, so we almost never had to wait for the bathroom. Breakfast was included, a cat lived there, and the room had a TV.


Sunday, September 19

We walked around downtown and up a hill for a nice view of Punta Arenas. We found a store with a telephone where you give the clerk the phone number, he dials it and says “You have a call from Chile”, and then you pick up a phone in a booth and talk. The rate was 450 pesos a minute, which is kind of expensive, but it does include personalized dialing, which I needed at the time. I talked to my wife, and then I asked the clerk if there were any rental car places around. He said many places were closed since it was Sunday morning, but he did find International Rental Car open and said they would be here momentarily.

I bought a map and a small souvenir. The rental car lady showed up at the store a few minutes later and we were on our way to the airport. The car was 25,000 pesos a day plus tax, and the rate includes insurance. It was a white Fiat with many manual features.

The car had manual steering, manual windows, manual side mirrors, and a manual transmission. I loved it! My car is a manual transmission but I got stuck with power steering and automatic windows and side mirrors. Why are Americans so lazy? It’s hard enough to find a car with a manual transmission, let alone one with a simple handle that moves the window up or down. No, we have to have everything done for us by machines.

On the way back to Punta Arenas from the airport, we stopped to view the Strait of Magellan. The wind blows out of the west constantly!

In the afternoon we drove south to Fuerte Bulnes. There are some cannons and beautiful views from Punta Santa Ana, such as this one and this one.

Monday, September 20

We decided to drive north and east through the Chilean Patagonia to the Argentina border. If we had more time, we would have visited Parque Nacional Torres del Paine instead, but we were leaving the following day. The drive along Route 255 is a nice paved road with almost no traffic.

I forgot to ask the rental car lady if we could drive into Argentina, so I assumed I cannot and parked the car at a restaurant next to the Chile border control office. The restaurant was closed at the time.

I know a little Spanish, and I had a Spanish phrase book, but neither I nor the book had a translation for the phrase “We would like to walk to Argentina because I must leave the rental car in Chile.” The officers couldn’t understand what we were doing there with no car and not having just gotten off a bus. We finally were able to communicate what we wanted to do and got our Chile exit stamps in our passports.

I was disappointed at the mundane Argentina border. Going back is more welcoming, with the Chile welcome sign and map. In the Argentina office, again we had trouble communicating what we wanted to do. I tried a different approach and said “passport stamps”. Then, the officer understood, and he stamped our passports “entry”, typed in some stuff in the computer, stamped “exit” and wished us farewell, pointing us back to Chile.

On the way back to Punta Arenas, we took a detour to the Strait of Magellan at one of the points where you can take a ferry to Tierra del Fuego. This was a nice looking beach although the cold and the wind gets to you after a while.

Route 255 has a parking area (estacionamiento) at frequent intervals (every 10 km it seemed). At first I couldn’t figure out why there were so many parking lots when there is nothing around, but then I figured that these are actually rest stops. They don’t have restrooms and picnic tables and so forth; just a place where you can safely pull over and rest. I wish the US Interstate system would do this. Having to drive 50 or 100 miles to the next rest area when all I want to do is take a nap in the car is annoying. One of the estacionamientos was paved while the rest are gravel.


Tuesday, September 21

We flew to SCL by way of PMC, ZCO and CCP. PUQ has some interesting looking jetways. I suspect the circular shape is to keep the jetways from blowing over in the wind. The jetways face north and the wind blows out of the west. It is so windy in Punta Arenas that it was actually windy inside the plane until the doors were closed!

We had a meal on the flight to PMC and had a lovely view along the way. At PMC we had a two hour layover. Check this out – a reserved parking space for expectant mothers. I’m sure this would be banned in the US for discriminating against senior citizens (don’t worry, there’s disabled parking next to it).

The connecting flight to ZCO with continuing service to CCP and SCL were short and at night. We got a beverage service on each flight (anything you want, too, not just bottled juice or water). There were four flight attendants, which is probably why they didn’t have to rush as much as Southwest does on short flights (three flight attendants and no cart on Southwest). Other airlines in the US are getting pretty lazy, tossing water bottles at you, or worse yet, having no beverage service at all on short flights.

When we arrived in SCL, I bought a ticket on Centropuerto for 1,000 pesos per person ($1.50). Not too shabby for semi-express service (a couple of stops along the way to central Santiago).

We stayed at Residencial Vicky for 5,000 pesos per person ($16 total per night). Being cheaper than the place we stayed in Punta Arenas, not surprisingly it wasn’t as nice. The shared bath had no hot water at night, and there was no breakfast.

Wednesday, September 22

We ate breakfast at Il Successo. I ordered the ave con queso (chicken and cheese sandwich), which was delicious even though it’s not something I would normally eat for breakfast.

We took the Metro (subway), which costs only 310 pesos (50 cents) off-peak and 400 pesos peak. The trains are clean, frequent, not delayed, and well used but not overcrowded. The trains run on rubber tires rather than steel wheels which makes for a quieter and smoother ride (rubber tires doesn’t perform as well at high speeds, but these are all local trains). The trains are well ventilated with outside air (free air conditioning) that doesn’t smell like crap. Why can’t NYC subways be like this?

We walked up Cerro Santa Maria, which provides a nice view of the city and the Andes mountains.

Around 6 PM we took the Furnicular (railroad) up to Cerro San Cristobal. It was getting close to sundown, so the view is not as clear.


Thursday, September 23

Our flight out of SCL left at 2:20 PM. This time we took Tur-Bus for 1,200 pesos per person ($2). Tur-bus has nicer seats than Centropuerto. We flew to LSC and then CPO where we had a one hour layover. CPO is a very small airport.

The next flight was to ANF, which has an interesting looking beach. We had a 2.5 hour layover in ANF, and then we flew to IQQ and ARI.

In ARI I picked up my rental car from Hertz. This time I asked the rental car lady if I could drive the car to Peru or Bolivia. The answer was no. This car was a Peugeot. Although it was a little bigger than the Fiat, I liked driving the Fiat much better. The Peugeot was unforgiving with the clutch while in first gear.

We stayed at Residencial Real, which was even cheaper at 6,000 pesos ($10) for the room. Unfortunately the shared bath had no hot water, and of course there was no breakfast.

Friday, September 24

We climbed up El Morro de Arica, which provides a very nice view from its height of 110 meters (I forgot to take pictures from the top but my brother did with his camera). After coming back down, we walked along the beach and the rocks.

My plan for the rest of that day and the next day was to drive to Parque Nacional Lauca, spending the night there. I read in the guidebook that there were hotels, but I didn’t read a lot of details. So far on the trip I was able to do everything with no planning (except the airline tickets obviously).

Around noon we left Arica and drove north to Route 11 and started east. The guidebook said that Route 11 is a paved road, which it is for a while. Most of the way is gravel, and I rarely got above second gear. There is very little traffic, most of which consists of large trucks. A few portions of the road are paved, but it’s so old and full of potholes that the gravel actually seems nicer.

We stopped here for a nice view of the mountains in the distance and Putre just down the valley. As you can see in this photo in downtown Putre, the weather is still warm enough to wear shorts.

We ate dinner at a hostal restaurant and then started back on the road around sunset. By the time we reached the park, it was pitch black. I did not see one hotel or even a sign anywhere. We were in the middle of nowhere!

The sign on the left side of this photo says “Visivri 90 km” if you turn left (towards the camera). I saw a few lights down the road (forgot the route number), so we drove down that road, but the little town apparently had no hotel. It was desolate, so we turned around.

We were in the Altiplano, where the altitude is 13,000 feet above sea level. We could tell which granola bars were airtight and which had a leak – the airtight granola bars were puffy! I also noticed that my cigarette lighter didn’t work any more (not enough oxygen). The car’s lighter still worked since that uses electrical resistance.

We drove back to the main road and continued east. We passed a couple of buildings with various signs, but I wasn’t sure what it was. I didn’t see anyone there, so after slowing down to a speed of almost zero, I started up again. All of a sudden, someone started yelling! I stopped the car and rolled down the window, and the man was saying something about internacional policia.

I turned off the car and went up to the office that he was gesturing towards, and I found out that we were almost at the Bolivian border (this office was the border control on the Chile side). We had driven all the way through the park without even knowing!

Luckily we didn’t get arrested for trying to evade border control. I started driving west on Route 11, and my brother and I discussed what to do next.

Driving all the way back to Putre and staying at a hostal was one option (we knew there was one since we ate at their restaurant). However, that took around three or four hours, and it was already 10 PM. Both of us had slept in a car at night before at a rest stop on a US Interstate, so we agreed that the best thing to do is sleep in the car. This would save a few bucks, and we wouldn’t waste any time and gas driving all the way to Putre and back.

We knew there was a place where we could pull off the side of the road, namely the same place where I took the picture of my brother and the car shortly before ( here it is again for reference).

I fell into a light sleep and woke up every time a truck approached. Even with the windows shut, it’s so quiet out there, you can hear a truck coming several minutes before it arrives. Around midnight I woke up because I heard a vehicle coming, and when I looked in the side mirror, I was alarmed that the vehicle was headed straight towards us!

The vehicle slowed down and red and white lights started flashing. I thought, oh boy, this is not good. Here we are, sleeping in a car in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, and the cops have pulled us over.

I got out of the car with my passport and international driver’s license, expecting the full treatment like cops in the US do. I gestured and explained in bad Spanish that we wanted to sleep in the car in order to see the volcano early in the morning. The cops said “OK” and drove off. Well, that was easy.

I tried to get back to sleep, but it kept getting colder in the car. I put on a long sleeve shirt, my hooded sweatshirt, my coat, my scarf, and my gloves. I still couldn’t get to sleep because I was shivering. Twice I turned on the car and ran the heater, but at idle it just didn’t add much heat.


Saturday, September 25

At 3 AM I gave up trying to sleep and sat up. I sat there for a while, trying to decide what to do. I don’t think my brother had gotten any sleep at all in the five hours we had been there.

I really, really wanted to see Cerro Parinacota. I don’t know if that’s the mountain seen in this photo just outside Putre, but anyway, I desperately wanted to stay the night so that we wouldn’t have wasted all this time.

After 30 minutes I realized that considering the rate at which the temperature is dropping, and the fact that we were at 13,000 feet of altitude, in four hours when the sun rises, we might be dead.

I didn’t sense any altitude sickness at 10 PM, and I’ve been at 14,000 feet before for a couple of hours (taking the train to Pike’s Peak and back). I concluded that the combination of fatigue from driving all day, the uncomfortable “bed” of a Peugeot, the dark, the cold, and the altitude were finally getting to me.

At 3:30 AM I suggested to my brother that we should start driving down the mountain, and he agreed. I started driving down the mountain. Four hours later, the sun rose, and I pulled over for a rest. My brother got out of the car and took some pictures and video while I slept for half an hour. After descending, warming up, and napping, my headache that had started at midnight finally went away. My lighter was working again at this relatively low altitude (around 4,000 feet I think).

In Arica the previous day, I bought a big jug of water to supplement our handful of smaller bottles. That came in handy, because that night we used up the small bottles, and in the morning we drank almost the entire large bottle (about a gallon). We also ate all the emergency granola bars (about 12).

When we got back to Arica, we stayed at Hotel Jeanne and David for 14,000 pesos a night ($23). This place had breakfast and a private bath but no hot water. I didn’t complain because I was so exhausted that I really did not care about bathing. All I wanted to do was sleep all day long and all night long.

The nice thing about this hotel was that they let us check in at 9:00 AM and eat breakfast, spend the night and eat breakfast the next morning, for one night’s rate.

My brother wanted to walk around Arica that day rather than sleep, so I took an hour nap, and then I felt better. We walked up El Morro de Arica again and visited the beach again. My brother took pictures, but I didn’t because I was exhausted. I love taking pictures when I travel, so if I’m too tired to take pictures, it means I’m really tired.

Sunday, September 26

We left ARI at 8 AM and flew to IQQ and then to SCL. I thought it was interesting to see a US military plane at IQQ.

I wish LanChile would let you deplane at a stop and then re-board so I could see the inside of ZCO, CCP, LSC and IQQ, but I guess they don’t because they wouldn’t be able to turn an A320 in 20 or 30 minutes. At the stop, a flight attendant walks down the aisle and counts passengers using one of those handheld clicking devices. After everyone boards the plane, she does another count. US airlines do a mental count, which I would think is more subject to error.

We had a 10 hour layover before the AA flight to DFW, so we took the Centropuerto bus to Santiago. We wanted to take Tur-bus because they have nicer seats for only 200 pesos more, but the waiting Tur-bus pulled away just before we got on and a Centropuerto bus pulled up.

We took the Metro yellow line and spent some time walking around Plaza de Armas and the neighborhood, buying some souvenirs from the sidewalk vendors.

I called my wife around 3 PM, and she said that AA had called her and said our flight was cancelled, and that we had been re-booked on Delta. She said AA gave her two phone numbers (Santiago numbers) for me to call. I called both numbers. One didn’t work at all, and the other rang and rang with no answer.

We took Tur-bus back to the airport, arriving at 5:10 PM. There was no one at the AA ticket counter because they don’t open until 5:30 PM. At 5:35 PM I entered the Delta line, assuming that since I had been re-booked on Delta, all I would need to do is check in with Delta. After half an hour I finally got through the line and handed over my luggage. The agent did some typing, and then he asked us for our tickets. I said that our tickets were electronic AA tickets, and that we had been re-booked on Delta. He said that we would need to get paper tickets from AA. He said when we get our tickets, don’t wait in line again; just come back to him at the desk, and he will exchange them for boarding passes.

By that time, the line at the AA ticket counter was getting long. We entered the line and waited. We waited for an HOUR. We finally reached the end of the line at 7 PM. The Delta flight leaves at 8:30 PM, which didn’t leave much time left. It took 15 minutes for us to get our paper tickets.

What is wrong with AA? They re-book us on Delta but don’t actually do anything such as print paper tickets? They give me two phone numbers to call, but neither works. I don’t understand why Delta still wants paper tickets. It’s not like Delta is some third world carrier that can’t accept electronic reservations.

During the wait in the AA line I realized that we were not going to have time to eat dinner, so my brother stayed in the line and I went to Dunkin’ Donuts to get 12 donuts, coffee for me and a Coke for my brother.

At 7:15 PM we went back to the Delta counter. The agent who took our luggage wasn’t there any more, and everyone else thought we were trying to cut in line. I heard people hissing at us, and I recognized the people who were next in line. They were right behind us for an hour in the AA line! I said, “Didn’t you notice us waiting in the American Airlines line in front of you?” They confirmed that they recognized us, but said that they had to get on the Delta flight leaving soon. I said, “So do we, and we already waited in line at Delta.” They went to the next agent anyway and refused to let us use the next agent. Typical selfish Americans.

The Delta agents who don’t work behind the counter (you know, the people who stand around, organizing the queue instead of doing any useful work) were confused about what was going on. The first thing they said when we approached the counter was “What flight are you on?” I said 8:30 to ATL. They said, “You have to go on standby.” I said “No I do not. I already waited in this line an hour ago and checked in my luggage. I was re-booked on Delta by AA, and I spend the last hour in line at AA to get my paper tickets.”

The idiots repeated that we would have to go standby, and I repeated the fact that we most certainly were not going on standby. Finally one of the idiots found our boarding passes on the desk that the first agent had printed out before he left.

You would think that for an airline on the verge of bankruptcy, they would stop ****ing around with their customers like that, insisting that you have to go standby instead of listening to the fact that the passenger’s luggage has been in their possession for over an hour. If I didn’t have to leave for a business trip two days later, I would have told them to shove it, go back to AA, and fly AA home the following day.

When I sat down in seat 30H on Delta, I suddenly remembered how horribly tight is Delta coach. My brother, being two inches taller than I, couldn’t even sit with his legs facing straight forward.

With all the delays checking in, and spending a few minutes exchanging currency, we were one of the last people to board the plane in zone 9 (last zone # for Delta). There was someone sitting in 29H but 29J was empty. I thought, whew, at least one of us won’t get crushed by a selfish seat recliner. I also noticed a lot of empty seats further back and was hoping to move back there and lay down over three seats.

Then the standbys started boarding. Those empty seats in the back started filling up, and someone sat in seat 29J. Worse yet, after take-off, Mr. 29J reclined his seat and left it that way for the entire flight.

Mr. 29H didn’t recline his seat (or maybe just a little), so after a couple of hours into the flight, I switched seats with my brother. My brother still had no legroom, but at least he wasn’t being crushed.

That nine hour flight was a very long nine hours. We had such a horrible flight on Delta that we were miserable for the rest of the following day. I got two hours of sleep on that flight, and that’s only because I can sleep just about anywhere. My brother got no sleep at all. To add insult to injury, the meal sucked. I had lukewarm chicken with dry bread. Thank goodness I thought of going to Dunkin’ Donuts earlier.

I am teaching Delta a lesson and booking zero travel on them for the rest of the calendar year.


Summary

We had a wonderful time. It was over all too soon. The pictures of the Strait of Magellan and the mountains don’t do justice to actually being there. The people are friendly, honest and helpful. People don’t freak out and wave their hands around when they see someone smoking. They don’t drive big giant SUV’s, and they use turn signals. I still have my watch set to 24-hour time (more convenient IMHO).

I guess if I had to pick something negative, it would be that downtown Arica could use better street signs, but that’s it!

Between the two of us, we spent 310,000 pesos (just under $500) plus $250 for the five days of rental car during the nine day visit.

Other than the return flight, my brother and I had a great time.


Here are the pictures again but in a smaller size (one step above thumbnail):

Waffle House for breakfast
old house Arlington TX
on the way to SCL
landing at SCL
LanChile flight
Hostal Fitz Roy in Punta Arenas
Breakfast at hostal
hostal cat
hostal TV
view of Punta Arenas
Fiat rental car
Strait of Magellan
Fuerte Bulnes
cannons at Fuerte Bulnes
Punta Santa Ana
view from Punta Santa Ana
another view from Punta Santa Ana
Route 255
restaurant next to border
Chile border control office
Argentina border
Chile welcome sign
Chile map
Strait of Magellan
ferry to Tierra del Fuego
beach
Rte 255 nothing around
Rte 255 estacionamientos
PUQ jetways
view from PUQ to PMC
PMC airport
PMC reserved parking space
Centropuerto bus to Santiago
Residencial Vicky
Il Successo restaurant
Santiago Metro
Cerro Santa Maria
view of Santiago from Cerro Santa Maria
Andes mountains
Cerro San Cristobal
view from Cerro San Cristobal
CPO airport
beach on approach to ANF
Peugeot rental car in Arica
Residencial Real in Arica
El Morro de Arica
beach in Arica
rocky beach in Arica
paved part of Route 11
gravel part of Route 11
view above Putre
downtown Putre
dark and unpaved part of Route 11
IQQ airport
US military plane at IQQ
flight from IQQ to SCL
Plaza de Armas in Santiago

JS, that was a great report. It is nice to hear about other parts of Chile than Santiago and especially one with driving to small towns, hostals, and border guards telling you to get out of Bolivia. Sounds like you made fantastic use of your AA certificate even though you were subjected to Delta on the return.

Great report! (well, other than calling PMC as PMU I took my first trip to Chile just about 3 years ago. I am taking my 8th this December. 4 of the trips = 10 days to 2 weeks in Chile each.

A few comments:
(1) You obviously didn't drive in Santiago - neither have I - even when I want a car to leave town, I'll go back to SCL to pick it up.
(2) I am really glad I didn't rent a car in Arica and do what you did, because I almost did, but there is not a single automatic rental in ARI. The altitude caused me a lot of grief and I would have had troubles driving.
(3) My first trip to PUQ I wish I had wandered more with my rental car - but it was my first time outside of Santiago and I was generally unfamiliar (and unnecessarily way over precautious)

I'm planning my December trip as we speak - the next time (going with someone who has never been) will be all back to familiar places. I can't wait!

Oops! fixed now

JS, you may be interested in my several Chile trip reports - or you may not be. Do a search under "comprehensive chile" and you will find all of them - but the links [cross-referencing the other reports] no longer work since the switchover to the new software.

Excellent report! Great photos, too.

Yes, I read them a few months ago. My experience was very similar. I would love to go back!