December 27th
We were scheduled to leave Mendoza today on an early evening flight and decided to visit the city of Mendoza on the way to the airport. We didn’t think it made much sense to drive to Mendoza back to our hotel and then back to the airport – too much driving back and forth.
We dropped off our luggage at the hotel that our inn had arranged and went for a walk around the city. Overall we did not love Mendoza – it too seems to have suffered from the economic crisis.
There is a main pedestrian street Calle Sarlmiento which leads into the beautiful Plaza Independencia. The pedestrian street is lined with restaurants and cafes all featuring patio dining. The choices are unlimited.
The Plaza Independecia is truly beautiful. There is a fountain in the centre and lots of benches for taking a break.
Mendoza City Plaza Independecia
Underneath/behind the fountain, below ground there is a museum. We did not actually go into the museum, other than to use the washrooms. The museum actually looked pretty small.
After lunch in one of the restaurants along Calle Sarlmiento we wandered around the city a little more then returned to our hotel to pick up our baggage and head to the airport.
One reminder is that in Mendoza (and many other smaller towns and cities) most business shut down for siesta so if you happen to only have one day in a town/city you need to keep this in mind for planning – ie don’t plan to go shopping from 13:00 to 17:00.
We arrived at the airport in way too much time before the flight. We wanted to have some wine and relax but we had forgotten that the airport is super tiny and offers very few services. We noticed that there was a casual restaurant and they offered beer and wine on the menu. Joe went to order some wine and was told that they don’t serve wine but he could get some from the wine store down the hall. Of course the wine store did not have any chilled wine. So we went without!
Checking In
In order to leave Argentina you have to pay a departure tax. You can do this either before you check in or after you check in. There is a booth across the hall from the airline check in where you can pay for your departure tax. You need this before going through customs/security. We paid for our departure tax before going to the airline desk.
We had read that European citizens do not have to pay an entry fee upon arrival in Chile but Canadians do. The fee is supposed to be something like a $120 CAD each so we had decided that we would use our European passports to save on this fee.
When we tried to check into the airline we used our Euro passports and of course they were not the passports we had used to arrive in Argentina so we had to use our Canadian passports to depart.
If you decide to do something similar, my advice is that you need to use the same passport for entering and leaving a country.
We used our Euro passports upon arrival in Chile and that worked out perfectly fine (more about that later).
Customs/Security and Boarding
It is a bit confusing going to the gate as the information as to which flights are boarding is not completely clear. My suggestion is that if you see your destination posted line up in the security/customs line.
You need to have all your documents handy at this point. The process is pretty simple from there and there is a waiting area with a duty free shop there for any last minute purchases.
Boarding is all at once versus by row number so everyone just lines up and boards so it is a little less organised.
We had amazing seats and I’m not sure how we got them but we were sitting in business class at the front (even though I had paid for economy).
Here’s where I became completely confused. I had been confused for several days now regarding time change and this is usually not a problem for me. I set my watch on board to the new time and generally no problem. I first was confused in Mendoza because there was a time change from Buenos Aires (which I thought I knew and thought I had changed my watch accordingly). Eventually I corrected that in Mendoza and thought all the time change issues were behind me. However the time on the flight indicated that the flight from Mendoza to Santiago was to be one hour and fifty minutes.
Being seated in Business Class I was waiting for the flight attendants to offer beverages and a snack.
We took off and were waiting for the seat sign to go off so Joe could move to another seat. Since Joe and I were sitting beside each other and there were several seats open, he wanted to move to a window seat to get a better view of the Andes as we flew over.
View of the Andes from Plane between Mendoza and Santiago
We kept waiting for the seat sign to go off but it never did, so he just got up and moved a row quickly then buckled back in.
View of the Andes in the Clouds
I was excited by the comfy seats and great view and was still wondering when the flight attendants would be bring me a coupe!
About 20 minutes into the flight I could feel that we were starting to descend, now I was feeling really confused, how could we be there already? The flight was about 45 minutes to an hour in total, the seat signs never went off and the flight attendants never got out of their seats. Strange.
Arriving in Santiago
We arrived in Santiago, proceeded to the customs area, presented our Euro passports and proceeded through to baggage. We did not have to pay a fee to enter but we admit that we did not see anyone else paying a fee either so we are still not sure if we would have had to pay a fee if we presented Canadian passports.
After claiming our baggage and just before exiting we arranged for a taxi to the hotel. The cost of the taxi was pretty inexpensive and I would highly recommend taking this option. The car was a new and comfortable model and the drive to the hotel was smooth.
Our first impression of Santiago was that it is a modern, well developed city. Of course as often is the case near most city airports there were some impoverished areas. The highways were very modern and smooth, very much like North American or European highways.
Our hotel was a modern, high rise located in the business district. Just next door to the hotel was a very large, modern North American style shopping mall.
Sunset view from Mariott Santiago
View of Santiago from Santiago Marriott
The mall is huge and has a large campus of restaurant, many of them American brands.
We checked into the hotel and decided to go to the mall for a light dinner before turning in early. We selected a local casual restaurant for dinner called Tip y Tap. I liked the name and the location was cool. It is located on the second floor and has an open air balcony. Although it was a little cool temperature wise it was nice looking out. The food was mediocre but the wine was good. We enjoyed a nice demi bottle of Chilean red wine.
Read Other Posts In This Series:
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI
Part VII
Part VIII
Part IX
Part X
Part XI
Part XII
Part XIII
Part XIV
Part XV
Part XVI
