The Journey - Part 2

Santiago - Immigration


For those that have flown on overnight international flights, you know that time about an hour before the flight lands when the flight attendants are running around making as much noise as they dare in order to wake the passengers? The time when you crack your eyes open and immediately someone is there asking "coffee?" That's when I awoke from a deep sleep. The exhaustion of the day before hit me on the plane and I managed to get about 8 hours of sleep on the 9.5 hour flight. I didn't even make it through dinner.

I gladly accepted the coffee from the bright eyed attendant after maneuvering the seat back to a coffee friendly position. (Fortunately, Nancy was able to get me a business class seat using miles from all of her travels. I know..it makes you feel a little less empathy for my ordeal. ) The seats in Delta's business class are much more user friendly than United's as they have both a "sleep" and a "land" button; one touch and you're set.

Looking out the window, I could see that I was on the wrong side of the plane or at least the wrong side for getting a good view of the Andes. I did, however, get to see the fog covering the Pacific and many smaller mountains. The thing that hit me most was the vast expanse of undeveloped land. There were green valleys with rivers and agriculture, but I didn't see any developments. Refreshing.

We landed about 30 minutes earlier than scheduled in Santiago. It was the most gentle landing I've ever experienced and I've flown a lot. The pilot was able to almost glide in with very little braking. I was happy for this as the dogs wouldn't get tossed about in their crates below.  Back to the 30 minutes early...this gave us the opportunity to beat the passengers from the other international flights arriving at the same time: Miami, Dallas, Paris, and several others. I ran from the plane with my brand spanking new passport in hand (a story for another day). I was so focused on quickly getting through immigration that I totally missed the turn for the VISA booth, which apparently every other newbie to the country missed as well. We were so early that the staff, who normally directs tourists to the counter where the Chilean government collects the $131 reciprocity fee, wasn't set up yet.  I found the counter, paid the fee, and ran back to the immigration line. By this time it had gotten longer, but it wasn't too bad. The system was efficient and moved steadily, but it was slower than I'd hoped. When Nancy said that she'd get to the airport at 8, I was thinking that I'd get through the system well before she got to the airport. I've gone through plenty of immigration lines and it couldn't take that long, I thought. I was mistaken.

I passed the time in the immigration line by worrying about the dogs, hoping they weren't too traumatized about the flight, and still wondering where the international health certificate papers were and how we would find them. I was constantly looking at my watch and wishing the process would go more quickly. Finally, I got to the front of the line, handed my documents to the immigration official, got a stamp (turns out stamping things is big here..more on that later) with no questions asked, and wandered out into the duty free area, through which one must walk in order to get to baggage claim.

Carrying my two backpacks, which turned out to be a bit more trouble than I had anticipated, I stared at the screen in the baggage claim area and tried to determine which belt I needed to visit to  get my bags. It turned out to be a little more difficult to find my flight than I'd anticipated. As I mentioned earlier, there were many many international flights coming in, so not all the flight/belt information fit onto the screen at the same time. The screen went from one page to another. The other problem was that my flight had three flight numbers: Northwest, Korean Air, and Delta. The flashing screens would show one of these at a time. Finally, I found Delta flight 147, Belt 4. I scampered off to find my bags.

I pass belts 1-3 on my left and the walled off customs area on my right. As I awaited the arrival of my luggage, I tried to size up the customs area that was the next step in my path. The wall is high, but I could make out several xray machines on the other side. Xrays of luggage being brought into the country? Really. YUP.  I also saw the entrance to the customs area from my baggage claim belt. Lots of people with luggage carts trying to get through the customs entrance at the same time. A female agent appeared to be directing traffic. Labrador retrievers were walking through the area and sniffing out contraband. Not nearly as fun as watching the beagle brigade in DC, but still cute. There are many signs indicating, I think, that absolutely NO produce or dairy product would be allowed to enter the country. During the flight, we'd been given a customs declaration form, which I filled out indicating that I did not have anything to declare. There didn't appear to be clear cut lines for declaring goods and the nothing to declare. It was just one big space with several lines and everyone's luggage was xrayed. It didn't look to hard and it turns out that it wasn't. When it was my turn to go through, the only thing that they asked about were the steel dog bowls in my rolling duffel bag. I guess they looked a little odd in the xray. How many people traveling to Chile carry three very large steel dog bowls in their luggage? Not too many. Then again, may a bunch since they seemed happy to let me pass with them.

Thankful to have gotten through that part of the process, I sprinted for the door. Of course, there were two sets of doors. Nancy was waiting for me on the other side of one set of the doors. Do I go left or right? I chose the contrarian position and went left. Oops. I popped out the doors and into Chile. What greeted me but a full range of taxi and limo drivers holding signs with people's names and/or organizations on them. I looked around and didn't see Nancy. I should have gone right. Darn, now I had to maneuver my luggage cart through the crowd that was waiting for people who had gone right.  I looked through the crowd, hopping to see that familiar face in the crowd. And there she was. YAY!

Off to find our driver. I really hoped the van he had was big enough for the two crates and us. At this point, I wasn't sure what to expect. All I knew was that it was now time to go find the dogs. What I didn't know was what a Monty Pythonesque adventure that would turn into.