Chile- A rough 48 hours...

I have a bone to pick with American Airlines. This morning as we sat on our last flight in a 48 hour period, I could tell that Jack was mentally crafting his complaint letter to AA. Let me explain our last 2 days.

For months now, I've eagerly awaited our Chile vacation with excited anticipation, imagining the towering granite spires of Patagonia, the crystalline lakes surrounded by volcanoes, the moans of the glaciers as they calve into the icy water, the glowing grapevines in the vineyards post-harvest...

I've pored over almost every Chile travel book in my local bookstore, scoured the internet for travel blogs and small tips, spent hours reading traveler reviews of Chilean hostels across the country. I finally felt like I had crafted the perfect itinerary, one that took care of a few of our activities and accomodations beforehand, yet left enough room for us to cruise into a town and wing it.

We booked our tickets on American Airlines, using miles we've accumulated over the past few years. It was almost like a free trip! Our flight itinerary had us heading from Seattle to Santiago, via a connection in Dallas. We would land in Santiago early Friday morning, giving us the whole day to explore the city, and the next day we would catch an early flight to Punta Arenas, the gateway to Patagonia. So how did I find myself in Los Angeles Friday morning? It's been a weird 48 hours.

After what happened to us last year in Greece, I wanted to make sure that we had at least a couple of hours to make that connection. I booked a flight that gave us 3 hours in between- perfect. Just in case. A few weeks before departure, I got an email from AA saying that our itinerary had changed, and now our 3 hour window had been narrowed to an hour and a half. Ok. No problem. What could go wrong?

We got to Sea-Tac airport on Thursday afternoon for our afternoon flight a few hours early, giddy with excitement for the trip ahead, to learn that our flight had been delayed by 20 minutes. Ok. Should be fine... right?

It all started so innocently. The flight was smooth. The captain said we would make up the time in the air. We would be in Dallas as scheduled. 30 minutes before landing, we noticed that we had been in a holding pattern for a while. The announcement came. Major thunderstorms in Dallas. They should clear out soon, she said. We'll be on the ground shortly. I cast a concerned look at Jack, and he shot one back that said, no worries. So I remained calm. Our arrival time came and went, and we were still in the air. Then, the other announcement. "Ladies and Gentlemen, the thunderstorms persist, noone is being allowed to land at DFW right now. We need to refuel and will be landing in Odessa, about 160 miles outside of Dallas."

Be cool, I told myself. We'll totally make that connection. If we can't land, they can't leave, right? We landed in Odessa, Texas to little fanfare, just the groans of the passengers around us. I thought I was staying pretty calm. I thought I was being cool. I made a few "I wish" statements (I wish we'd get a move on... I wish the rain would stop), and then a few "I hopes" for good measure (I hope we make that connection!!! I hope our bags make it too) when Jack suddenly spoke up and told me that I was being quite "vocal" about our situation. Hm. That surprised me. I popped a piece of gum in my mouth and proceeded to chomp vigorously. We checked the AA on-line flight schedule from Jack's phone, which showed that our connecting flight had been delayed by 20 minutes. We would miss it.

And so we did. We arrived back in Dallas 25 minutes after our Santiago flight left without us. I was bummed. Seriously bummed. But willing to roll with it. We'd lose our first day in Santiago, but maybe we could still make it into Chile in time to catch our flight to Patagonia. We managed to book ourselves onto a flight the next morning which would take us from Dallas to Los Angeles, to Lima and finally to Santiago. The ticket agent who rebooked our flight really didn't inspire much confidence as to whether or not we would see our baggage on the other end. She assured us (not very reassuringly) that she had put in a baggage transfer request and it should be on the same flight as us. In the meantime, AA put us in a nearby hotel with a very panicked looking night manager. I supposed I would panic too if my sleepy hotel suddenly flooded with stranded airline passengers at midnight.

So, we slept and hoped for a better day in the morning. Well, things went smoothly. We caught our flight into smoggy LA, got a quick bite to eat, and easily made it to our connecting plane and finally! Onwards to South America. The Chile flight was nice- not packed in, we had plenty of room to spread out. We even watched a really horrible Kerri Russell movie called "August Rush" in which she plays a concert cellist (a really bad one at that) but I still cried at the end when she was reunited with her family. Must have been the stress. We slept well on the flight and were in Santiago at 5:30 AM Saturday morning, enough time to clear customs, pick up our bags and catch our flight to the end of the world.

Except our bags weren't there. We waited and we waited. And then we were the last people waiting, and that's a very bad feeling. Especially when the conveyer belt stops. To make a long story short, nobody knows were our bags are. They might be in Dallas, they might be in LA, they might have finally made it to Santiago somehow. But nobody knows. Supposedly someone is trying to find them for us, but we've given up. We resigned ourselves to the fact that our 2 duffels are floating around in the sky somewhere. We turned around and got on our plane for Punta Arenas anyways. We have just the clothes we're wearing. All of our valuables are with us, thankfully, as well as our toothbrushes. In the end, I guess that's all we really need. I've had enough time now to mull this over where I can be philosophical about this instead of FREAKING OUT OF MY HEAD. Perhaps God is trying to tell us that we don't need "stuff" to see the world, that we're too reliant on our own plans, that sometimes, we just need to go with the flow... and so we're flowing. I wonder if I'm the only person who's ever arrived in Patagonia in flip flops. They're great for flying, but not so good for climbing glaciers.

We arrived in Punta Arenas in the early afternoon, and immediately embarked on a serious shopping spree. New hiking boots and waterproof jacket, underwear, socks, a new pair of pants for each of us, a few shirts and sweaters. On a sidenote, buying clothes in South America is certainly humbling. Everything that I grabbed that should have fit, didn't quite fit. The pants are too long and too tight around the waist and in the butt, whereas the sweaters and tops seem to have more room, even in the small sizes, and especially around the bust. That just means that the women here are thin, tall and big-chested- everything i'm not.

We grabbed a bite to eat (some seriously decadent empanadas!) and then caught a 3 hour bus ride to Puerto Natales, our home base for the next 3 days. We found our hostel in the dark as it poured cats and dogs (thank goodness I'm no longer wearing my flip flops!) and now we sit, calm, dry, at peace with the world, in front of the fireplace at our cozy hostel. A real wood fireplace. A couple of glasses of wine. Yep, things are getting better. In fact, Jack says he's having a pretty good time.

Tomorrow, we're going to Argentina. To see a crazy glacier. Sweet.