Stepping into Chile’s History: 10-Day Chilean Excursion

We had a marvelous, unforgettable trip overall, including visits to Santiago, the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, Easter Island, Torres del Paine National Park in Patagonia, Chile, and finally Antarctica. We experienced a great variety of Chile's vast geography and ecology, from the beautiful central valleys, to the northern desert, to the tropical Polynesian island of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), to the forests and mountains of Patagonia. The lodges and excursions they provided in each destination were well organized, with knowledgeable, English-speaking guides. We visited Antarctica and it was spectacular. The tour operator offers expedition travel for people who want to experience the polar regions firsthand. Our expedition, 14 days that went below the Antarctica Circle, featured expert guides who enjoyed sharing their considerable knowledge of geology, glaciers and ice (!), mammals, birds, and plants, to name just a portion, and excursions twice daily on zodiacs to sail among glaciers and whales and seals and walk among penguins and skuas. It was not a leisure cruise, but an expedition for folks who want to experience and appreciate the Antarctica up close. That said, the ship was extremely comfortable, with a remarkably hospitable staff and delicious, copious food.

Our travel company was excellent in helping us to conceptualize, plan, and organize our trip. They offered many useful suggestions about where to go, how much time to spend in each destination, and which options to consider for hotels/lodges and the Antarctica expedition. We greatly appreciated their advice and assistance in putting together our trip. All of the hotel and transit reservations were made, and that part of the trip went smoothly.

However, there was a persistent problem with our air travel in Chile that was unnecessary, and which caused us needless aggravation. For our internal flights (to/from Calama/Atacama, and to Puerto Natales), our travel company purchased the cheapest LAN tickets that did not include baggage allowance. I discovered this a month before we were set to travel, when I was carefully reviewing the reservations (and about 5 months after they purchased the tickets). When I informed the travel company in early January 2018, I said we of course had baggage (especially cold weather gear for Antarctica) and needed the 23 kg allowance. After I informed them of the problem, they did work to correct the problem, telling us they had purchased baggage allowances for those flights that didn't originally have them. We got a receipt from them for baggage for one of those flights (to Puerto Natales), and were told it was resolved for the Calama flights but LAN couldn't provide a receipt. When we did check in for those flights, the baggage allowance was covered, but our concern before each flight could have been avoided if they had bought the correct tickets. 

This problem became more apparent, and more aggravating when we were checking in to fly from Atacama to Santiago, and then on to Easter Island. We were told we could not check our bags all the way through to Easter Island because our tickets for the two flights that day were not on the same record. (This was due to the fact that two different priced tickets had been purchased. The Easter Island tickets were regular, economy tickets.) So we had to check in our bags to Santiago, retrieve them from baggage claim at Santiago Airport, and then return to the Departures area of the airport and check them in for the flight to Easter Island. Santiago Airport is a huge, crowded, messy airport, and this process of literally running around the airport took us 1.5 hours (of what was a 2 hour layover). We arrived at our gate for Easter Island just as people were boarding. This was not what we planned for or expected—and it could and should have been avoided if the travel company had bought the proper air tickets from the start.

This company is a first-rate Travel/Tour Agency.  

We travelled for over 5 weeks through Australia and several places in South America.  The arrangements made through this travel agency in Chile were the BEST of our trip!!

-  In Santiago, our hotel - we loved this hotel.  The staff was attentive and the accommodations were modern and comfortable.

- Tours & Guide at Santiago: We so enjoyed our tour guides. Their knowledge of the city sites was complete and very fun! 

- Tours & Guide at Easter Island: Our Tour Guide was excellent!    We learned so much and enjoyed his passion and knowledge.

- Matetic Vineyards:   We loved this vineyard/winery.   Lovely accommodations, lovely restaurant, great service and beautiful winery/vineyard.  Our host's knowledge of wines made our visit even better!

- Tour to Valparaso - What a beautiful place!  Our guide was wonderful in his tour.  We very much enjoyed the day with him.

All transfers went smoothly and on time.  The attention to detail by our travel agency was excellent and much appreciated!

The individuals with whom we worked at the travel company were very nice and responsive and it is overall a good and reputable provider who could stand to learn a few things. All sub-providers were prompt and waiting for us without a hitch. We found all guides and drivers to be extremely friendly and personable, and for the most part well-organized.

The provider in the Atacama, was highly educated and experienced in touring. He helped arrange early check-in at the hotel in San Pedro which was very helpful

We only have a few "teachable" items to report:

1. The 2:50 a.m. pickup at the hotel in Valparaiso was absolutely brutal. The hotel said that they would have something for breakfast while we waited for our guide to pick us up. We arrived downstairs and there were a few stale cookies out from the prior evening and no coffee. The young man working the night shift scrambled to get some coffee together for us, but unfortunately we had to wait until we got to the airport in Santiago for the trip to Calama to get a meaningful meal (at our expense). Our guide, however, stayed with us to efficiently navigate domestic check-in, and even arranged for a little known way to get discounted checked baggage handling with the airlines that saved us quite a bit of money.

As we later discovered, there is a hotel at SCL airport where we feel it would have been better to stay instead of overnight in Valparaiso, as due to the early wakeup we were not going to take advantage of the night-life there. Logistically, we would have liked a little better advice in this regard as the recovery from the early wakeup was tedious. We felt like overall using a booking agent was worthwhile, as we probably could not have had such good coverage with the limited amount of time we had to spend planning.

2. HUGE discrepancy in Patagonia itinerary led us to initially believe we were flying in to Puerto Natales (1 1/2 hours to Torres del Paine), but it turns out we were actually booked to Punta Arenas (4 1/2 hour drive to Torres del Paine). Much to our displeasure, the hotel had sent a small vehicle for transit to the Park and we were crammed very uncomfortably into the backseat for the entire ride minus the stops. It was late in the game when the travel company had to change these arrangements (they did not notice the discrepancy until I called a trip planner and pointed it out), and the hotel said all their larger vehicles were in use at the time. NOT HAPPY with the error on the itinerary nor the transit from Punta Arenas to the park! The return to Punta Arenas was much more accommodating.

3. Given that we did a pay a premium for the travel company to arrange logistics, we would have hoped for a recommendation for the star-gazing tour in the Atacama. This is one of the top attractions of the desert. We feel that we just told them what we wanted to do and they did what they could to accommodate our requests without much additional creativity or forethought to some of the itinerary and logistics.