Friday Photos - Chile

Flight #43 – LAN 932
Santiago (SCL) – Mendoza (MDZ)
Friday, Mar 29, 2013
Depart: 3:45PM / Arrive: 4:40PM
Duration: 55min 
Seat: 13A and 13C (Economy) 
Earned: 121 miles 
Lifetime Miles: 89,738 miles 

By the time you're reading this Friday morning, I'm likely heading to SCL Airport for my short LAN flight back to Argentina. 

But this time, we're heading to the mountain town of Mendoza, the wine region of the country and home to more than 1,200 wineries, for 4 nights before returning to Buenos Aires on Tuesday.

Since today's a travel day, I don't have much to write, but here's a few photos from the past 5 days in Chile.

  

Pablo Neruda's Isla Negra House

Since my Asian father made me study up on Chilean history on the plane ride over, I knew that their national treasure was the celebrity poet, Pablo Neruda.

But aside from being a beloved literary artist, he was also a pretty avid collector of all things interesting that his homes became museums. So my parents decided to have a Culture Day and spend it in search of Pablo Neruda's 3rd house in Isla Negra (the other 2 are in Santiago and Valparaiso).

On Wednesday morning, we rented a car (procured by W Santiago's concierge) that was delivered at 10AM to our hotel. Including GPS and taxes, it came to $105 USD for 1 day. Aside from a 19% extra charge for using a credit card and a 500 CLP/USD exchange rate, it made much more sense to just pay in US Dollars, though we did so after returning the car (so that if we had any accidents, we'd be covered under our credit card's car rental insurance protection). They also gave us the car with only 1/8 tank of gas. Thanks, Chilean Car Rental Company.

Getting from Santiago to Isla Negra is a pretty easy 90 minute drive (or so my father says), only 3 big roads and then a few twists and turns at the end.  But make sure you go Tuesday-Sunday, because they're closed on Mondays.


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Before you try to make the drive though, make sure you have some cash on you because there's a bunch of tolls along the way after you leave Santiago - 3 to be exact.  The first two tolls are 1,600 CLP each ($3.20 USD) and the 3rd toll is 1,150 ($2.30 USD).  Then obviously, you need to pay all three tolls on the way back as well.  This is in addition to the Santiago tolls but those are usually paid automatically by radio waves using an EZPass-like device in the rental car.

When you get to Isla Negra, you'll be surprised as how barren the town is. You're really in the middle of nowhere. There's one main road with a handful of restaurants and tourist shops along it. There were no signs, no tour buses, no lines of tourists. Nada! Being a small kid, I was pretty scared we were lost since there were no signs at all showing the way to the Pablo Neruda house.

But my father had been here 5 years ago so he knew where to go. Here's what you should remember if you decide to make the trip. First, the house is along the Pacific Ocean so you should focus on the side of the road that is closest to the water.

Second, the road you need to turn down should look like this dirt road here.  You'll be able to identify it because there's a mural of Pablo Neruda down at the far end of the Cafe (see above the yellow car).

After you go down the road, you can make a left turn by telephone pole followed by a right at the benches you'll find in the path.

The other way is to just go straight down this first road and then turn left at the end until you reach the point where you're lost. Eventually you'll find some people walking to/from the Pablo Neruda house and can just ask directions.

When you do find the Neruda house, you'll walk into the boleteria (ticket office). Prices are 8,000 CLP ($16 USD) per person. Adorable babies (and even ugly kids under 7 years old) get in free. Students pay a discounted price but must flash their student ID.

When my father went 5 years ago, they had guided tours in English or Spanish and you had to wait for a specific tour time/guide. He had to wait about 45 minutes back then to get on the English tour, but it was worth it because you got a lot more color and context to the 19 different parts of Neruda's house.

But now, they just send you off alone with an audio device that you can hold up to your ear or plug your headphones into. I preferred actually to forego listening to the guide and rather to just run around trying to touch everything I could get my little baby hands on.

I learned that Pablo loved the ocean and made his house look like the interior of a ship (tight narrow doorways, curved ceilings, all rooms with windows facing the ocean). He also had a ton of paraphernalia he's been collecting and he collects EVERYTHING (butterflies, Chilean foot warmers, ships in glass jars, seashells, portraits of poets, Japanese and tribal masks).

All I wanted to do was just rip everything off the tables and play with them, but my mother didn't agree and kept me on lockdown during the tour. My father wanted to take some photos but you're are not allowed inside the house/museum. But you can take as many as you want outside.

Overall, it was a fun day with my parents. I'm glad I came along with them instead of hanging by the W hotel rooftop pool again.

W Santiago

Hotel Stay Details 
Hotel: W Santiago
Dates: March 24-29, 2013 
Rate Paid: 4,800 SPG Points + $90 /night 
Regular Rate: $429 / night (incl. taxes) 
Total $ Savings: $1,695 
Point Redemption Value: 7.1 cents/pt

After trying out a budget boutique version of a W Hotel in Buenos Aires, we went back to our beloved Starwoods for the real thing during our 5 night stay in Santiago. I love W Hotels, but the W Santiago elevator set up was frustrating.

Background
The W Santiago was a very expensive property, going for about $429 / night if we paid in cash or 16,000 SPG points if we paid in points. That would have been a redemption value of 2.7 cents/pt. But since we'd be staying 5 nights, the 5th night would be free, bringing down the per night point requirement to 12,800 per night (3.4 cents/pt), or 64,000 SPG points total.

However, if we used SPG Cash & Points, we'd be paying $90 cash per night but only using 4,800 points per night. That meant the 4,800 points would save us $339 USD a night - an amazing redemption value of 7.1 cents/pt. That way, my father could also save his SPG points for future hotel stays instead of blowing his load using them all up at once.

Unfortunately, the Cash & Points (as well as the Free Night Award) doesn't get you breakfast included in your rate, but we didn't need the 1,000+ calorie morning meals anyway, especially since we woke up around 11:30AM each morning.

Arrival
We took the pre-paid taxi (20,000 CLP or $42 USD) from Santiago International Airport (SLC) and arrived quickly to the Las Condes area (high end Santiago neighborhood where the banks and embassies are located). The W staff helped us unload the car as soon as we pulled up and escorted us up to the Lobby on the 4th Floor.

The hotel shared space within a larger commercial building that included corporate offices, retail stores and restaurants, so the elevator set up was quite complicated.

• There was the first set of elevators to take you from the ground floor entrance to the 4th floor lobby. 
• Another set of elevators on the 4th floor to take you to floors 3 (gym) through 11.
• And still another set of elevators to take you from the 4th floor to floors 12-21 (rooftop pool).

I suppose there was a reason for the elevator insanity (like forcing people to take the stairs in an emergency) but I didn't mind, because it forced us to walk through the stylish lobby area on the 4th floor.

The 4th floor also had the hotel restaurants including the Tea Library, Wine Tasting Room, Noso, Whiskey Blue, Osaka. Since I've been throwing a fit whenever I'm at a nice restaurant, my parents didn't take me to eat in any of these places, opting for the Room Service option instead. But they all looked very posh and tasty.

Our Room
After checking in and confirming our dates, we eventually found the right bank of elevators to get to our room on the 10th floor and, to my delight, the room was very close to the elevators (Room 1019) just like we requested. But I was in for a real treat, because upon entering, I was amazed at how high the ceilings were. And I'm not just saying that because I'm 2 feet tall.

Unlike most of the hotel rooms I've been frequenting, this room had almost 20 foot ceilings. The height of the room really made you feel like you had a massive room, even it it was just a regular studio.That being said, the square footage of the room was also pretty large for W hotel standards.

But the main eyecatcher was the pop art along the wall behind the bed of the famous Andes Mountains. I immediately ran to the phone to call Reception to thank them.

In typical W Hotel style, they also had the open bathroom with an exceptionally large opening to the bedroom area. The large foot print of our room gave us plenty of space both in the sink area as well as in the walk in rain-shower. And of course, they had my mother's favorite lemon-sage scented hotel amenity set - Bliss.

The rest of the room was pretty standard but much cleaner/simpler than other W hotels, which I preferred. Many other W hotels go over the top with tchotchkes that clutter up the room instead of add to the ambiance like they think.  We asked for the 10th floor (could have taken a 5th floor room) because we wanted the better view. I wasn't sure which side we were facing (I think North) but you could see some mountains in the distance and that was enough to appease me.

Rooftop Pool
Since it was mid/high 80s during our week here in Santiago, we spent yesterday lounging at WET (the W Rooftop Pool) on the 21st floor. As I mentioned though, getting from our 10th floor room to the 21st floor meant we had to stop by the 4th floor and walk through the Tea Library/Lounge in our swimsuits to get to the other elevator bank that would take us up to the rooftop. Aside from my brief embarrassment flashing my  chubby baby legs to the traveling businessmen and their model-esque girlfriends, I was happy when we finally got upstairs to the pool.

As you might imagine, it was quite a scene with more high end Santiago socialite-types than adorable babies like me, but my father and I stuck to the empty end of the pool with the covered cabanas while the "see & be seen" crowd got their suntans on the uncovered far end where they practiced flexing their bodies while trying to appear as if they weren't. Ah, the W Hotel crowd...

But despite all the scenesters, not too shabby for only $90 USD a night.

Santiago Dining - Donde Augusto

Back in 2008, my father traveled solo all over the world including Chile. It remains one of his most favorite countries to this day, mostly because of how delicious Chilean food is. And you cannot visit Chile without a stop in Santiago's Mercado Central where you'll find the famous marisqueria (shellfish restaurant), Donde Augusto.

Sunday
We landed in Santiago International Airport (SCL) on Sunday afternoon and made our way to the W Hotel in the Las Condes district of Santiago, checking in around 4:30PM.

We decided not to try to do too much the first night since we'd be in Santiago for 5 nights, so we decided to just have a light dinner in the neighborhood (actually, downstairs in the same building as the hotel) and spent the evening in our room letting me run wild in the spacious W bedroom til I passed out for the night.

Monday
After waking up late and dropping off our dirty laundry (mostly my father's believe it or not) at a nearby shop, we hopped the metro at Tobalaba Station and took Line 1 to Downtown Santiago where all the action is. Subways are only 670 Chilean pesos (or about $1.40 USD) each way. But note to parents with strollers: there aren't many elevators at all. Hope you dads out there can handle carrying us up/down lots of stairs.


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After checking out a few of the unimpressive Santiago sights (Palacio de La Moneda and Plaza de Armas), we finally made it to Mercado Central where the wet floors and the smell of fish welcomed us.

My father went around the sides to take photos of the fish and mariscos, while my mother and I waited for him in the central hallway leading to Donde Augusto.

My mother is used to having men with strange accents approach her, but my father wasn't ready for the aggressive waiters swarming him like he was a hot NYU girl at a Columbia frat party. But since he had been to Donde Augusto before, he knew to expect the hard sales pitch even though he fully intended to have lunch there.

The menu is a bit overwhelming if you're not familiar with Chilean seafood but since the restaurant caters to gringos American tourists, they had translations in English in the menu. Super touristy. I honestly was expecting laminated menus with photos of the food in them, but my father said we had to eat there for a massive late lunch and that we'd skip dinner.

We started with a plate of Chilean erizos (sea urchins mixed with parsley, onion, lemon juice and a little oil) for an appetizer. My father was about to just dump all the onions and parsley into the bowl and spoon up the sea urchins like he was eating Campbell's soup, but my mother suggested we ask the waiter.

Apparently, you take a few sea urchins at  a time and put them on a new plate where you mix in a little of the other ingredients. Glad we asked.

For our main course, we all shared a mixed shellfish platter (mussels, calamari, shrimp and abalone) and a chupe with centolla (stew with Chilean king crab).

Now some parents are pretty cautious with feeding their babies new foods, but thankfully, not my parents. I was going nuts eating all this delicious seafood, including my favorite - centolla chupe!

You might expect the chupe to have only a tiny bit of crab meat, but the bowl was full of chunks of meat and only a little stew. And 1 bowl could feed 2 normal people (though  my parents eat like the adults on Honey Boo Boo). And also (I have to say it, because I'm half J---ish), the centolla chupe was a much better value (11,000 CLP or $23 USD) than getting the actual steamed centolla (49,000-100,000 CLP or $104-212 USD!!!!).

Including a large bottle of overpriced water, the bill came out to 42,900 CLP + 10% tip (just under $100 USD total). Now, that's super super expensive for a lunch for just 2.5 people, but given it was the only money we spent all day, so my father found a way to justify eating at the incredibly overpriced tourist trap. Plus, we were renting out our NYC apartment this week, so we had a little extra income for this trip.

As for me, I can now check the box on Donde Augusto and start to enjoy the real Chile (Viña del Mar, Andes Mountains and Pablo Neruda).

South American Adventure

So back in November, my father was on Facebook comparing me against the babies of his high school friends when he came across a post by The Flight Deal that promoted TAM Airlines flights from New York to Buenos Aires for under $400/person. So he checked his March 2013 calendar, and surprise surprise... it was wide open. Booked!

Now I'm not an expert, but a $400 flight is damn cheap! In fact, because he likes to do such things, he checked the price for the same itinerary the next morning. It went back up to $1,200/person.

Apparently, it was a "mistake fare" - meaning someone in the pricing department accidentally published the wrong fare.

Maybe they left off the 1 in front of the 400?

Maybe someone in IT was disgruntled and played a prank?

Maybe it was part of a conspiracy by an international media mogul to get Americans to buy Argentine jeans because the Cuban embargo cut off the supply of Sansabelt slacks.

Who knows? But nevertheless, our tickets were booked and paid for at $400 each. And next week, we're off to tango in Buenos Aires!

Best of all, we'll be earning around 12,000 United miles because TAM is still part of the Star Alliance (until their merger with OneWorld's LAN Airlines closes early next year).

As my 3 readers know, I've yet to visit South America. The closest I've come is watching Disney Junior on cable where every other cartoon character that isn't Mickey Mouse has a Mexican accent.

My father figured that while we were all the way down in Argentina, we might as well swing by some other places. He was considering Iguazu Falls or Patagonia, but let me pick and I decided on Santiago, Chile instead.

Given we had just done the whole Amazing Nature thing in Thailand, I wanted some more cosmopolitan surroundings with museums, sidewalk cafes and historic landmarks. And my mother wanted some proper shopping in stores where the salespeople weren't barefoot or eating lunch in front of you.

So my father booked some flights between Buenos Aires and Santiago with a stopover in Mendoza (Argentina's wine country), returning to BA two days before our return flight back to New York.

I'm really looking forward to our next adventure and getting some more stamps in my Israeli passport (American passport holders have to pay $160 entry fees for both Argentina and Chile).

Even though it would have been nice to space it out a bit more from our recent Thailand trip, my father said he preferred having our big exotic trips done while he was still technically employed and getting health insurance benefits. Fine by me since my calendar was pretty wide open for March.

Here's our itinerary (for now):

1. Buenos Aires - 5 nights at Own Palermo Hollywood (cash)
2. Santiago - 5 nights at W Santiago (cash & SPG points)
3. Mendoza - 4 nights at Park Hyatt Mendoza (cash)
4. Buenos Aires - 2 nights at Palacio Duhau Park Hyatt Buenos Aires (Hyatt points)