Well .. the cost of the internet a la Hyatt precludes picture posting, I regret to inform all of us. US$30 for one hour? No way!!

Our motto for this trip has been ¨mucho suarte¨ (probably misspelled) meaning "very lucky". I tried to explain this in Spanglish to Alejandro, who drove us to Calama airport. I wanted to see the last of the llama genus, the guanacho. Aljeandro patiently explained they are in the lower altitude plains in the morning, not the afternoon. We invoked "mucho suarte" and .. wham! .. over the next hill, a subadult, its mother and a third guanacho were waiting for their close-up. Straight out of "Sunset Boulevard" (or perhaps here, Bolivar?)

We arrived back at the Hyatt and enjoyed the tapas at the poolside. Then, time for much needed rest.

This morning, we let Regent hospitality desk know our room number and ambled out to find the subway. We had an entertaining encounter that successfully resulted in breakfast. Fuch´s panera for US$5 or Hyatt for US$50? Easy choice. We studied the map & realized we could take the hop-on, hop-off bus for US$30 and see everything from above ground. OK! I grabbed the walking tour ideas off Fodor´s and we enjoyed strolling most of Santiago. At 2 pm, my hunger alarm went off. We coasted up to El Golf neighborhood and chose a restaurant with what we thought was an $11 lunch. Nope .. turns out that is take-out (Spanglish equivalent: Ticket) for the local offices. Instead, we got a spectacular lunch with pisco sours and abalone. For free, we got to speak more Spanglish with the wait staff about the Atacama desert. Hey, feed me a Pisco sour and I am fluent in Spanglish. We were doing a slide show with the staff. They were dressed in officer shirts, so they grabbed their captains hat to continue the conversation. The best part was when I explained my plans for a return visit to see Punte Arenas, Puerto Montt, Pucon and San Pedro. They tried to ask Gary, who shrugged. "Hombre no comprende" resulted in laughter and a big handshake and greeting, "Mi amigo, Gary!!" We then got to pantomime what happens if you don´t chew coca leaves and try the altitude. everyone understood that part of the non-conversation.

I then found a friendly internet cafe (One hour = US$2.75) with no SD card reader. Oh well.

Dinner is in 90 minutes for the ICE crew to celebrate the FJANDAN reunions.

Signing off for a while. Leslie, thanks for serving as communications secretary. Next stop: Explorer II

A bietot (or asta luego)

Cheers, Anne