Santiago to Buenos Aires

I need to head to Santiago airport this afternoon, for a 5 pm flight to Buenos Aires. That means a 2.30 pm departure from The Aubrey hotel, so I have a morning to occupy in Santiago.

Santiago

The Aubrey is located next to the entrance of the funicular to Cerro San Cristobal, in the ‘lively’ area of Bellavista, so I decide to take a ride to the top of the hill. The funicular is reminiscent of Wellington’s cablecar and travels a similar distance. It’s late morning, so I’ve left it way too late to avoid the smoggy conditions over Santiago, but the views of the city aren’t too bad.

The noise outside the hotel overnight has again seen me oversleep and miss breakfast, so it’s brunch at Le Fournil at Patio Bellavista. I then only have time to wander around Bellavista looking at interesting street art, and finding a few secret gated laneways of 16th-century Hispanic architecture – some gated communities where the locals live in this primarily university dominated area.

My airport transfer is arriving as I’m walking in the hotel gates. I should be sorry to leave this beautiful hotel, but unfortunately, at $USD365 per night, it has some major flaws that make me glad to leave. The noise from the nightclubs in Bellavista is outside the hotel’s control, but the thumping music from the kitchen at 6.30 am isn’t. Likewise, housekeeping lacks professionalism. Having spent time on the floor of my room stretching, it is evident that whilst the floors may have been swept, they haven’t been properly washed for years. There are black areas on the wooden floors that are simply hardened dirt from under the previous furniture, and the soles of my bare feet are filthy from walking on the floors. A good clean and some soundproofing would work wonders for the room and the rest of the hotel.

I miss a trick at Santiago airport and check-in for my flight to Buenos Aires at the Bag Drop counters, not remembering that there is a premium check-in area upstairs on the first floor. It probably would have saved me a polite debate with the check-in staff as to the eligibility of my checked bag to exceed the 23kg economy allowance. At 25.5kg, I was over, but under OneWorld rules for Sapphire and Emerald status, you are allowed another 15kg or an additional bag. It took two staff and a supervisor, and a polite apology from the check-in staff in the end, but we’re still friends aren’t we LAN?

The flight to Aeroparque (Jorge Newberry airport) in Buenos Aires is a ‘commuter’ flight of 2 hours, full of businessmen in suits. Santiago is busy building a new international airport, which will hopefully mean in the future that the bus across the airport tarmac to the A330 plane can be avoided. We are about 15 minutes late departing but arrive in Buenos Aires five minutes early, so some favorable tailwinds in play.

Buenos Aires

It must be my day for airport issues, so after breezing through immigration, a longish wait for my bag results in customs wanting to see my rolling camera bag after going through the scanner. The agent wants to know whether my Canon 7D MKII and 100-400 II lens is mine or whether I’m bringing it in to sell it. That’s the gist of the conversation in Spanglish anyway. All good, and I always carry a scan of my receipts on my phone if necessary.

I’ve also arranged a hotel transfer from Aeroparque to the lovely hotel Legado Mitico, a short distance away from this ‘city airport’ in Palermo. It’s about a 20-minute drive after exiting the chaos that is the airport arrivals and departure area traffic.

I stayed in the sister hotel of the Legado Mitico (of the same name) in Salta ten years ago now, and loved the Argentine character-inspired nature of the rooms. 11 rooms in this small boutique hotel are named after prominent or famous Argentinians. I’m assigned the Primera Dama (Eva Peron) room, overlooking the small, shady courtyard at the back of the hotel. A beautiful hotel, that is everything The Aubrey could be, but isn’t. 

A quiet day on the walking front today – 8km all up, with 11,000 steps.