Flight to Santiago and Flying Over the Pacific Ocean

I arrived in Santiago, Chile over a week ago on Saturday 7/29. At that time I said I will “write tomorrow” so I can have one day of rest. And then “tomorrow” turned into a week. And now I am writing after being in Santiago for two weeks.

I flew from NYC LaGuardia airport to Miami. Then from Miami to Santiago. My 8-hour overnight flight from Miami to Santiago was good. I love International flights because they serve dinner no matter what time it is. So at 11:52pm I had dinner. A hot meal dinner with real silverware. The airport in Miami was my first exposure to full Spanish language immersion. Spanish is almost completely spoken in the Miami airport (similar to the rest of the city). I hardly heard English. In New York and Los Angeles airports, you mainly hear English first, and then some Spanish. Despite the late hours of any flight, I’m always drawn to the interactive flight map.

This flight path from Miami to Santiago flies across impressive geography, along with other parts of Latin America that I would eventually like to visit, including Cuba. At this moment on the interactive map, we were flying over Cuba.

Then we crossed over Panama and the Panama Canal.

Around 3:30am, we crossed the Equator.

And another highlight, though unbelievable to imagine all of this is below us – we crossed over the Chile Basin, the Chile-Peru Trench and other deep ocean formations: deep parts of the ocean that include a major fault line, tectonic plates, and constant seismic activity.

Pretty amazing seeing these on the map as we flew over.

The flight landed safe and sound. It is a little daunting when flying in complete dark at 3am knowing you are 32,000 feet in the air over the ocean.

We hit one spot of turbulence, but not bad. I put my faith in the skilled pilots, and the flight attendants who are always a source of calm because…well…they are always calm. The nervousness went away as soon as we landed and I saw a tiny peak of the sunrise coming over the Andes Mountains through the windows.

For some this was a trip home. But for me it was country #31, a long time coming.

Going through immigration was smooth with no issues. Depending on what country you are entering, the border officials will want to see your return flight confirmation and reservations where you are staying. But I was not asked for these here. At this point I always try to blend in with the locals. After I got my luggage, I worked my way to the local transportation hub to get a local taxi. I don’t need a private car or any special treatment. The local taxi is good with me. The time in Chile is the same as New York, so there was no time change adjustment to make. Just an adjustment to the cooler weather. It is nice here.