Chile on the "cheap"

...sigh....it is with a twinge of sadness, and an inappropriate touch of nostalgia that i type this entry and remove "30 days in Chile" from the top of my blog. Now, unfortunately, only those new visitors crazy enough to read past the first posting will be able to drink from the "vast pool" of my (newfound) knowledge -- all unfortunately focused on Radisson hotels' international calling rates.....(but hey, i hear it pays to specialize!)

Alas, it still remains a story deeply in need of being told, and yet i must move on....and talk about all the *other* crap that turned me off to Chile! :)

Golden Lotus kindly points out that His Holiness the Dalai Lama would say that "holding on" is what leads to suffering, and i should just let the whole Chilean experience go.

I quickly retort my readers (both of them!) tell me that they need new content! Fresh meat! A $172 phone call is yesterday's news! Besides, I already have a tattoo of some Asian symbols that say "peace" or something....So, I'm clearly already enlightened. What do I need with the Dalai Lama's ramblings now? (although i do dig his "baldness")

(Before I go on with my next anecdote, I should point out, out of fairness to the Radisson hotel chain and the country of Chile, that from time to time some parts of my posts may be dramaticized and embellished for the purposes of making a story more entertaining -- for instance, the fact that the front desk at the Radisson I jumped on top of prior to my bomb threat was actually made of maple, not mahogany as I reported.)

Since I don't know where to start, I'll simply start from the beginning....

When we arrived in Santiago, it was late....after midnight. After waiting in line for the better part of 15 minutes or so we arrived at the front of the line only to be told that we had missed a previous stop where we were supposed to pay for an entry visa.

The place to pay for entry was buried behind some stairway (not visible) from the normal flow of traffic moving toward customs, and was in the bowels of the airport. There were no lounges, or even chairs, just hard tile floors

By virtue of the fact that both Golden Lotus and I were holding US passports we were required to pay $100 each to enter Chile. Since I had read about this beforehand, I came prepared with my greenbacks, however there was a woman ahead of us in the line that was having some problems. We were the only three that had to pay for entry.

The woman in front of us was from Mexico. She hadn't been so well briefed and only had Mexican pesos and a cash card. The woman collecting payment for entry wouldn't accept the Mexican pesos. The person at the money changing desk had long since gone home. There were no cash machines. The woman was stuck in "no man's land" -- and the Chilean woman working the visa sales desk had no intention of finding a solution for the woman outside of sleeping on the hard tile.

I agreed to pay for the Mexican woman to get out of "hock", and was relieved to find out that her price was only $15....then angered that her price was only $15... :)

As Golden Lotus pointed out at the time, this entry to Chile, while seemingly inocuous as I retell the story on my blog, didn't give her a "warm fuzzy" feeling about the country or it's attitude towards tourists.

....

We hired a car easily on the other side of customs and were driven to our hotel (booked online for $80/night). It was a "Best Western" if I remember properly. Booking online is so "hit and miss" that I had attempted to get a franchisee of a "so-so" US chain so that I could at least manage the "downside", get something with a pool, and rest up after a late arrival to check out the other hotel options in Santiago.

When we arrived well after midnight the entire building, parking lot, and lobby were pitch black. The cabbie flashed his lights and honked his horn and eventually a floodlight came on in the parking lot.

The "Best Western" was...."interesting"

Some indians (with a dot) had taken over ownership, and apparently as long as you are paying the franchise fees there isn't a lot of influence over the QC of their South American establishments. The interior of the lobby actually had a funky / exotic feel to it, but our room was a bit too "authentic" (indian) for my tastes.

The bellhop took GL's bags up the stairs to the second floor leaving me to haul my bags up the steps myself. I assume the elevator was broken (?)

I'm sorry that I didn't have my camera handy when we arrived at the room, but let's suffice it to say that it was in the top 2 or 3 worst rooms i've ever seen in a lifetime of budget travel in asia, europe, north, central and south america.

The room was *tiny* two impossibly small single beds had been crammed into a room of even more cramped dimensions with ridiculously mismatched and haphazard bedcovers....almost as if they had been custom built to fit in this hovel.

The carpet was low, industrial grade blue with no pad beneath it and unbelievably stained. There was an AC (!), BUT the AC was an old school floor mounted variety circa 1960-something (?) It took up what little space there was at the foot of one of the beds and had greasy dirty ductwork taking the exhaust from the AC to the window that looked out at an interior wall. The furnishings, doors and bathroom were "late 70's trailer". To be fair, in the 60 seconds i spent in the room, i saw no animals (dead or alive).

I pointed out to the bellhop that this couldn't possibly be our room because I had "reserved" a matrimonial bed....In other words, a Queen or something that wasn't separated.

The bellhop basically didn't want to talk to me about it and was more than a little rude in suggesting that I take it up with the manager. As it turns out, they had given my room away, even though I had already reserved it with a credit card.

I kindly told them (really, i hadn't "lost it" yet...it was only the first day) that the room wouldn't do and i'd have to ask them for a recommendation of a competitor. The manager understood, and the bellhop was quick to point out that not all their rooms looked like that. Apparently, he was a little embarrassed by it too (?)

They called us another cab and called ahead to another hotel of similar price to ask about availability for us. The kindest thing I can say about the place we ended up for the night was that it was cheaper (75/night) cleaner (if you didn't look to close at the carpet) and quiet....but the full details of our first 24 hours in glorious Chile will have to wait for the next installment.

Until then.
ciao for now,
fuBarrio