Returning to Santiago (and all that entails)

At very long last, this past Monday, I arrived back in Chile for the first time since March of 2020, when I abruptly flew home to California as the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic became obvious. I was originally to arrive on the previous Saturday but, late that week, LATAM suddenly canceled my nonstop Friday flight from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Aeropuerto Arturo Merino Benítez (SCL).

Thanks to my heroic travel agent—there are still such things!—I was able get rescheduled for Sunday even though not without trepidation that the new flight might also be canceled. Analía Rupar-Przebieda (an Argentine resident of Southern California) first tried to reschedule me on Delta (a LATAM partner) via Atlanta, but Delta refused (even though the SFO-LAX leg of my flight was with them). That would have gotten me to SCL on Saturday as planned, but the rescheduled LATAM left on Sunday and didn’t get me here until early Monday morning.

The lines at immigration were long, but moved surprisingly quickly.

The flight was reasonably comfortable if crowded, and I was one of few coach passengers wearing a mask (those in first and business seemed to take it more seriously). On deplaning and arriving at immigration, though, we were faced with the longest lines I’ve ever seen at any airport. We also saw a warning for monkeypox—Chile continues to take contagion seriously—but the lines moved surprisingly quickly. So did the customs and agricultural checkpoint, so I was finally officially in the country.

Is monkeypox the next big thing?

Now to get to the city, and I purchased a seat on a shared TransVIP shuttle and was surprised to find a 5.5 percent surcharge on my foreign credit card. This has also been the case on some restaurant meals, but not on a purchase I made at a downtown department store. I had arrived with a small amount of Chilean cash but, at the new international terminal, the exchange houses were offering very poor rates and there was no functional ATM anywhere to be seen.

 

I rested most of Monday, other than a fine Peruvian dinner at with my host Marializ Maldonado at Del Carajo, across from the Hipódromo (racetrack) in the untouristed neighborhood of Independencia. The next day, I found a BancoEstado ATM and learned that their once-free ATMs now charge Ch$5500 (roughly US$6.50) for any withdrawal from a foreign account. Yesterday I made the maximum withdrawal of Ch$200,000 (about US$230) with the private Banco Itaú at a cost of Ch$6,000 (US$7). I haven’t yet tried to change US cash in the city, because I’m saving most of that for unpredictable Argentina.

With luck, my so far trusty Suzuki will be back on the road soon.

In preparation for upcoming Patagonian road trip, I’m now awaiting replacement of the catalytic converter on my 2005 Suzuki Grand Nomade, which failed its most recent revision. The most worrisome part of this, at present, is the availability of a replacement part, though my trusted mechanic Mauricio Donoso sounds reasonably optimistic.

Another issue I’ve had to deal with is cell phone service. My US carrier provides phone and data coverage here, but with limits—not exactly clear—on how much, and I’ll be in Chile and Argentina for three months. Because my new iPhone 12 uses an E-SIM rather than a physical chip, I cannot use a pay-as-you-go option here and, without legal residence in the country, nor can I open an account with a monthly plan. Yesterday, though, my host Marializ added me to her plan (and I’ll reimburse her), but that’s not an option for the overwhelming majority of visitors. Some will be limited to WiFi.

Purgatory 2.0? EZE to DFW (and, Fortunately, Beyond)

Early last week, anticipating our flight back to California (via Dallas), we rose early and went to the closest location of CentraLab, a private medical testing company in Buenos Aires. To return to the US, being fully vaccinated against COVID-19 is still insufficient to return; it requires either a PCR or an antigen test the day before flying. It’s worth noting that this is not a 24-hour requirement; our flight was scheduled for 8 p.m. Friday evening, but any time on Thursday would have been acceptable.

Results of the antigen test (with personal info edited out)

The obligatory attestation...

We were hoping to be able to schedule the tests there, but that location did not handle COVID testing. Rather, they said, we would have to schedule an appointment online for a different venue—but one that was still only a US$2 cab ride from our apartment. If our appointment hadn’t been at 8:45 a.m., we’d have walked there but, as it was, we got there shortly after 8 and they saw us almost immediately. In just two hours we received the results and could relax. After filling out the obligatory attestation for US immigration, we finished our last full day with an Italian dinner, with my brother-in-law and his wife, at Trattoria Olivetti (its walls decorated with typewriters), just across the street from our place.

The exterior of Olivetti

And the interior...

The next afternoon, getting to the airport was a bit more complex than we anticipated. Leaving the apartment, we immediately caught a cab to the central Terminal Madero in the expectation of catching a Tienda León remise (livery car) to Aeropuerto Internacional Ministro Pistarini (aka Ezeiza). Because there were two of us, this would be only marginally more expensive than taking the bus, but on arrival we learned that there were no longer any remises operating at the site. The only option was the bus, for which we would have to wait nearly an hour, so we opted for catching another taxi in the street, for which we paid Ar$6000 including tolls.

That was more than the Ar$3820 (US$35.32) I had paid for a remise from the airport a month earlier because, lacking sufficient Argentine cash, I had to use my US credit card. In this later instance, though, I paid with “blue dollar” pesos which made the cost US$34.31 for the two of us (had we taken the first taxi all the way from our apartment, it would’ve been cheaper yet).

Arriving at Ezeiza, we found a fairly long line for our American Airlines flight to DFW, where we would have a four-hour layover before connecting to San Francisco, but we got through immigration and security quickly—or did we? While I used to enjoy flying, I’ve grown to loathe airports but I have appreciated the fact that, in Buenos Aires, we don’t have to remove our shoes and all the electronics from our carry-ons.

This guy's 2008 visit to Buenos Aires didn't go over well.

I spoke too soon, though—when we lined up to board the flight, I found myself randomly (?) singled out for a secondary check that did involve removing my shoes and my electronics, and even inspecting my iPad for, apparently, traces of explosives. For this I blame the individual in the photo above who, until 2017, was the worst president in my country’s history. He and others of his party have done lasting damage both domestically and internationally.

We didn't get much flight information...

Last month’s flight from DFW to Argentina was, without question, my worst experience ever in the air, and one I didn’t care to repeat. Here, though, my initial impression was positive as the Boeing 787 sported a great-looking touch screen for entertainment, but that didn’t last long. For some time, according to the electronic in-flight map on which I normally enjoy watching the plane’s progress, we never left the ground and the hour never changed from 7:53 p.m—“distance to destination 0 km, time to destination 0 minutes.” Eventually a rotating globe appeared, but it soon showed us off the coast of West Africa, approaching the Ivory Coast port of Abidjan!

That, of course, did not inspire confidence, and things got worse as it became apparent that the overhead reading lights did not work in any section of the plane, and to read my paperback novel I had to hold my phone’s flashlight with the book in my lap. Meanwhile, the in-flight food offerings were so unappetizing that I consumed nothing but water. Mercifully, I managed to fall asleep for about a third of the ten-hour ordeal and, when we arrived in Dallas, we passed quickly through immigration and customs, with not even a perfunctory look at our baggage.

So, this flight wasn’t quite so bad as the previous one but, that said, we were now in COVID-friendly Texas where, despite the ongoing mask mandate in airports, at least a third of all passengers couldn’t be bothered about spreading a potentially deadly disease. Fasting to avoid contributing even a penny to this dysfunctional state, we waited at our gate only to learn that a last minute change would require us to sprint more than a mile through the sprawling terminal. Texas is the new Purgatory, and it was a relief to board a flight to the comfort and safety of California.

 

 

 

 

Is Purgatory Real? SFO to DFW to EZE on American Airlines

I’m not Catholic—in fact, I’m an atheist—but after completing my first flight in two years, I think I finally understand the concept of Purgatory. Early Sunday morning I started the initial leg of an odyssey that took me from San Francisco to Dallas Fort Worth to Buenos Aires and, except at the very beginning and the very end, it was a disagreeable experience that I felt might never end.

First the good—after my wife dropped me off at SFO, the counter attendant who did my check-in was a simpático Uruguayan who did his best to promote his homeland, though it’s unlikely I’ll cross the Río de la Plata to Montevideo or any other port in the Banda Oriental on this trip. After checking my vaccination card and PCR test (no more than 72 hours prior to departure for Argentina), he also snagged me aisle seats for both legs of the journey (In theory I still prefer window seats to enjoy the landscape from 35,000 feet, but my prolonged recovery from last year’s ankle surgery has made ease of access more important than it used to be).

Things quickly deteriorated from there and that, of course, meant security theater from the so-called “Department of Homeland Security.” On my body scan, they saw things they didn’t like—one of which was a money belt that included the US cash I was carrying to Argentina because the official exchange rate is so disadvantageous. That was fairly easy to explain, but they also detected a “suspicious” elastic knee support I was wearing because of recent soreness and, even worse, a support sock apparently set off their metal detectors (I’ve been wearing one ever since my surgery, and it contains trace amounts of copper). In both cases I rolled up my trousers to invite a direct inspection, but the individual who detained me felt obliged to call in a superior who eventually authorized me to continue.

SFO to DFW left on time from Gate B23.

At DFW, prominent signs didn't necessarily mean compliance.

Gathering my belongings and putting my shoes back on, I proceeded to the gate and, surprise of surprises, the flight to DFW (Dallas Fort Worth) left on time and even arrived a few minutes early, with no anti-masker incidents on board. Immediately I noticed, though, that in COVID-friendly Texas many people were disregarding CDC masking regulations despite numerous posted signs. At SFO, mask compliance appeared to be 100 percent, while at DFW I would estimate that some 30 percent were ignoring the regulations in one way or another. The worst case that I observed was a 60-something porteño loudmouth on his phone at a charging station; when I gently suggested he should use his mask, he went ballistic.

The loudest scofflaw was an Argentine shouting into his cell phone.

DFW recently made No. 8 on a list of the country’s ten-worst airports. That’s partly because of frequent delays and, indeed, our departure for Buenos Aires was more than two hours after the scheduled time. It got worse, though, as the gritón mentioned above was just one seat away and, for most of the flight, couldn’t be bothered to wear his mask. He was not the only one, though, and even some of the flight attendants couldn’t be bothered on a plane that was nearly full. There was also one of the worst shrieking toddlers ever to keep me from even attempting to sleep.

AA 997 left more than two hours late from Gate D36.

I passed on both dinner and breakfast—life’s too short to dine on airplane food, and I eaten had a decent prosciutto sandwich while waiting for takeoff. I did sample a glass of a Pinot Grigio on board (American has been one of the last airlines to resume alcoholic beverage service), but it was almost undrinkable. My only regret is that I hadn’t realized that my video screen included a window-seat view camera which, though not so good as an actual window seat, at least provides a rough view of the landscapes below.

Unfortunately, I only discovered the window-seat camera view shortly before we landed in Buenos Aires.

Immigration was fairly quick and efficient at Ezeiza.

Once we deplaned on Monday morning, things got better. Immigration lines weren’t long, and the official who processed me asked only to see my declaración jurada (affidavit) for evidence of vaccination and other info (it’s obligatory to fill out the declaration 48 hours prior to departure for Argentina). I quickly showed him the PDF on my phone, and then he put the first stamp in my brand-new passport. I then went to the office of Transfer Express for a cab, for which I had to pay the official exchange rate via credit card because I fell just short of enough Argentine pesos acquired at the so-called “blue rate” on my last visit.

A glass partition separated me from my Venezuelan driver, but didn't inhibit conversation.

Traffic into town wasn’t bad, and my cabbie was an agreeable Venezuelan with whom I could talk baseball—a pleasant coda to perhaps the worst flight I’ve ever endured—despite the glass partition that now minimizes driver-passenger contact in the pandemic world. At home in our Palermo apartment, after a refreshing nap to make up for lost sleep, I enjoyed a plate of spinach gnocchi at Bella Italia Café, just down the block, before retiring for the night.

I ended the day with a plate of spinach gnocchi at Bella Italia.

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