My flight from BOS to MIA was on time. Although I had enough
time to catch my next flight in Miami, I was greeted by LAN airline crew just
out my gate of arrival from BOS and handed me another boarding pass thst folded
inside a folder that reads as “express”. Then I went to my gate to catch my
flight to Santiago. On my flight to Santiago, fortunately, I was sitting with
one of the LAN airline pilot who is returning back home from USA. Every crew
member in the plane knew him and treated us like a king, including first class
wine service. He is a very nice gentleman who has very good general knowledge
about the current situation around the world. I also did learn a lot of histories
from him, including the story about the war between Chile and Peru back in 1870s,
in which the war concluded with victory to the Chilean by controlling the
entire Peru, including the capital Lima. He also told me that the two countries
currently have a water dispute. Chile also has port dispute with Bolivia, which
is pending at the international tribunal court. Not a surprise if the 3rd
world war, if it happen, will be due to water dispute. Another history that I
learnt from this gentleman was the bitter disagreement between Argentina and
Chile over the three small islands in Antarctica, in which Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher of England wanted the war to happen very badly just to punish
Argentina using Chile to perform the dirty job for her. However, thanks to the
late John Paul the 2nd, the war did not happen and instead they solved
their difference peacefully, which was a bitter humiliation for Madam Thatcher.
Interesting landscape from top near Santiago airport.
We landed at Santiago airport safely. Right after I went out
my gate I follow the connection flight direction, and I met ‘Mr confuser’,
airport crew, and I asked him if the connection flight direction also include
domestic flight and he said “YES” and asked me to follow the direction. I did
follow the direction and passed the security, which I was in hurry, but it
happen to be only international connection and I had to returned back all the
way down; and it also cost me another big price; i.e., I lost my fitbit devise
at the security check point. Finally, I passed though immigration, which
required a landing fee of $160, and made it to my gate to catch my flight to
Punta Arenas, and that was where I reunited with my UCLA folks. Here I’m now on
the plane heading to Punt Arenas.
Santiago airport
We arrived in Punta Arenas on time and safely. Everything
was perfect. There were about 18 people, who came for the same meeting, on the
same plane. Two min-buses were waiting for us. The weather in Punta Arenas is
terribly cold with 20-30MPH wind speed. We board onto our bus and start driving
to our destination, one of the most naturally beautiful places in Chile, called
Torres Del Paine National park. We were told that it is 4hrs drive from Punta
Arenas. Well! Practically it took us a little over 5hrs drive, including about
30min stopover at Hotel Posada Rio Rubens for lunch. Anyway, we started driving
at about 3:20pm and we got to our hotel at about 9:00pm. Although most of us
were exhausted due to the long hours flight, we managed to witness the amazing
land scape structure of Chile on our way to the national park. We also saw a
lot of unattended animals, mostly sheeps and I asked Victor (one of the Chilean
scientists), who was with us, if these sheeps are wild or not. Unfortunately,
he doesn’t know as it was his first time to this part of Chile. Just to say a
little bit about this national park, it covers a total area of 227000 hectares
and was created in May 1959 and in April 1978 it was included on a UNESCO
Biosphere reserve list. The park has different micro-climates that create an
interesting biodiversity with different native species.
Restaurant that we lunch on our way to Torres Del Paine National park
One of the gorgeous landscape that we saw on our way to the park
Some of the views of Torres Del Paine National park
We finally arrived to our hotel, one of the
resort hotel (Hotel Rio Serrano) in the park. The rooms are gorgeous. We just
had a wonderfully delicious buffet dinner, and I can’t wait to crash my bed.
Good night for today!
