September 26, 2024

Dateline – Birmingham, Alabama by way of Santiago, Chile

In the interest of completeness, here’s the last entry in the South American travelogue (or, as I am referring to it in my mind, the ABC trip for Argentina, Brazil and Chile – the quasi visit to Paraguay doesn’t fit the mnemonic well so we’ll leave that out). As I am writing this from the comfort of my own bedroom with Binx the cat having got over his butt hurt at having been left behind for a few weeks (I had someone come watch over him – he’s been fine) I’ve given away the ending which is pretty much home again, home again jiggety jig. But let us go back 36 hours or so to the wine country of Chile.

It was another gorgeous cool but sunny morning in the Chilean coastal range. I found out we were less than ten miles from the coast where we were, but you would never know. So I guess the microclimate is very equivalent to the California wine growing valleys tucked in among the folds of that coastal range – Napa, Sonoma, and Ukiah. And similar latitude only south rather than north. No wonder it felt so familiar. I spent years in that part of the world. There wasn’t much to do other than get packed for the trip home and then get on the bus for a couple of hour ride back to the metropolis of Santiago. We got a bit of a bus tour of the city (uninspiring due to an uninspiring guide) and then dropped off at the Ritz Carlton in one of the nicer parts of town. Then, the obligatory three course lunch with three different wines.

As the tour was set up with the expectation that flights would depart the next morning, we were all booked into very nice rooms at the Ritz Carlton. I did not realize they were one of those establishments that rented rooms by the hour because I had all of about two and a half hours between the end of lunch and my needing to board the shuttle van to the airport as I was on the red eye back to Atlanta last night. I had fairly minimal time in Santiago but I did walk around a bit and snap a few pictures. It reminded me a lot of LA. A large city with a backdrop of snow capped mountains with a lovely warm climate, full of mid rise apartment and condo buildings (at least the parts of it I could see) with a cement channeled river running through the middle. No coast. That’s an hour and a half away in Valparaiso. I suppose the LA analogy holds true if you consider Valparaiso Santa Monica and Santiago the San Gabriel Valley.

There was worry about the flight back being majorly inconvenienced by hurricane Helene churning up the Gulf of Mexico but we went around or over it in some way and there were no more bumps than usual and got into Atlanta about half an hour ahead of schedule. This was a bit of a problem as customs was not yet open so we had to sit around while TSA early shift came to work. Being the first flight in of the day, the lines were short to get through passport control. The lines through security were another matter as they had obviously not scheduled enough workers to handle the incoming flights. Fortunately, I had a couple of hour layover so I wasn’t pressed for time. The Birmingham flight was a bit late as they held it for late passengers. Delta wanted to try and get as many people where they belonged before airports started shutting down across the Southeast. A friend picked me up, and I got home just after 9 am.

I’ve been dragging, but teleworking today trying to empty out all of my boxes and things prior to in person work on Monday. I’m slowly getting there and should be pretty caught up by the end of tomorrow. I hope. I even made my noon board meeting much to the surprise of the other members who assumed I would not be capable three hours after finishing international travel. I survived residency pre-workhour limitations. I know how to function without sleep. I just don’t enjoy doing it.

And so the trip is over. I’ll go back into travelogue mode at the end of December when I go off to London for a theater week with some of the usual gang. In the meantime, you’ll have to read me opining about public health, elder care, politics, theater, and all the usual things I write about. It may be a few days.