{"id":10809,"date":"2017-04-05T03:19:51","date_gmt":"2017-04-05T07:19:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/?p=10809"},"modified":"2020-09-07T09:11:22","modified_gmt":"2020-09-07T13:11:22","slug":"flying-chile-start-andes-crossing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/blog\/flying-chile-start-andes-crossing\/","title":{"rendered":"Flying to Chile to Start the Andes Crossing"},"content":{"rendered":"
Say yes! It all starts when you say yes. Even if you have reservations, say yes. Many wise people have been quoted saying something similar to, \u201cRegret of the things not done far outweighs any regret of things done.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Four years ago, I thought I had lung cancer. I wasn\u2019t being a hypochondriac. The docs thought so too. When I went to figure out what I wanted to put on my bucket list, I could only come up with one thing. Really, just one thing. It\u2019s not that I\u2019ve done everything there is to do, obviously. Or even that I\u2019ve done everything I can imagine doing. But as things have come up in life, I\u2019ve said \u201cyes\u201d most of the time. I have enjoyed many incredible experiences and opportunities, and they have always started with \u201cyes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Now, writing a blog about crossing the Andes on horseback is challenging for a lot of reasons. But the most difficult part is that for a simple writer like me, I just don\u2019t have the words to adequately describe it. Pictures don\u2019t do the crossing justice either. Nothing can capture the vast expanses, absolute silence, and incredible solitude of the journey. It was an adventure beyond what I had hoped or expected, and if you\u2019ll bear with me over the next few articles, we\u2019ll take the trip together as I do my best to bring life to the pictures and events as they unfolded over six marvelous days under the big sky of the Argentinean and Chilean Andes.<\/span><\/p>\n Carol and I flew to Mendoza, Argentina, via Santiago, Chile, on a Copa Airlines flight through Panama City. Copa is a United partner, and the flight from Managua (MGA) to Panama (PTY) is a short 80 minutes. We had just enough time to stop by the Copa Club and check some final e-mails before heading to the gate for our flight to Santiago, Chile (SCL). This flight is a bit longer at 6-hours, 30-minutes, and we arrived at 8:00 p.m. We passed quickly and efficiently through customs and were off to the Hilton Garden Inn by the airport for dinner and bed.<\/span><\/p>\n The next morning, we rented a car to do some exploring around Santiago. <\/span>Tip<\/b>: Be sure to get the toll pass for the local Santiago \u201cfreeways.\u201d They are not technically free, which is why you need the automatic toll pass, but they are largely free of traffic, allowing you to speed along down the open highway.<\/span><\/p>\n After checking out the car, we headed out to the Curacavi and Casablanca valleys to look at the region and visit a couple properties. The drive out of Santiago is easy on a modern, four-lane, limited access toll road. Unfortunately, as we found out, it\u2019s not the same kind of tolls as the card we had in the car, so we had to pay cash. Having not made any change yet, paying with large peso bills was thankfully no problem.<\/span><\/p>\n