Chilean Travel Agent

My South American trip is the first tour-packaged trip I ever done. The first 11 nights of the trip was booked by a Florida agency while the last 4 nights was booked by a Chilean agency.

Booking via the Florida agent was a breeze. I told her which package I wanted and provided my credit card, and that is it.

However, booking via the Chilean agent has been a nightmare. I emailed and called her daily during the trip and things still went wrong. She made flight reservation but did not purchased the flight tickets and did not notice this mistake until SIX hours before the flight departure. I ended up have to call the airline myself to book the tickets. She also changed the flight time without notifying me, so we ended up on flights that depart at 2am and 4am. Furthermore, during land excursion, I had to work individually with each local agents because she did not work out the transportation and tours logistics for us [even though she told us those were already taken care of].

Trip is completed but the nightmare continue. She overcharged $1,500 on my credit card; so now I am trying to work out this mistake with her over email. Argh!

Traveling: Tour Package or Self Guided

I enjoy planning, so all my previous trips have been self-guided. However, because I did not have time to plan this year, we took the South America tour package.

 

Things I like about tour package (base on my experience from this Rio to Santiago trip):

-No thinking involved. From the beginning to the end, there is someone taking care of you from picking up at the airport to dropping off at the airport. No getting lost. No worry.

-Other tourists on this tour. Everyone is friendly.

 

Things I do not like about tour package

-I felt like I am being shuttle like a cattle.

-Waking up early for the tours

-Visiting jewelry shops

-No time to stroll around the town

-Not getting to know the city. I need to time to wander around.

-A lot of time are wasted on waiting for everyone to be ready. I like being efficient and this is counter-efficient.

 

If I have it my way, I will do all my future travels the way I used to do them: self-guided!

Unexpected Headaches

Anyone with some travel experience knows that unforeseen issues are part of traveling experience; excellent planning cannot prevent all these surprises.

 

Since I did not have any time to plan for this South America trip, I booked two tour packages (this is my first tour package vacation). The first (American) tour agency took care of all the planning from Rio to Santiago. The second (Chilean) tour agency took care of the planning from Santiago to Patagonia. We are at Santiago right now and the first part of our tour ends tonight. We are taking the 2:45AM flight to Punta Arenas for our Patagonia trip.

 

The booking of the second package has been an unexpected nightmare. I thought all I needed to do is gave my credit card number; as I had done for the first tour package. Instead, I emailed the Chilean travel agent daily while I was traveling from Rio to Santiago and called her several times today for our flight information. Six hours before our flight departure time, she informed me that her assistant mistakenly charged other people´s flights on my credit card and the tickets for our flights were still unpaid. I ended up had to call the Lan Chile to pay for the three tickets. The travel agent promised to fix the error and refund the erroneous charge so I would be paying just tthe previously-agreed tour package price.

 

What a headache!

 

Hopefully the remainder of the trip will be great and the travel agent will fix the error in a timely manner.

 

 

Buenos Aires

-Brazil and Chile is more expensive than Argentina. Meals in both former countries cost about the same as USA but about half in Argentina.
-Steak are cheap (Cost about USD $15) but I did not ate any amazing steak. All I got were mediocre to ok steaks. Many people in our tour shared my disappointments, though several people did found amazing steaks. We probably just had bad luck and stumble upon bad restaurants.
-Chimichurri sauces are amazing. The sauces made average-tasting steak tasted good.
-Chicken empanadas are very good here.
-Chinese food are suprisingly good here.
-Breakfast sucks here. I wanted more than just breads and fruits for breakfast.
-I love how everyone spend hours in cafe and cafe offers wine.
-Wines are super cheap here. We saw Malbec (yummy) for only 4 Pesos (USD$1)
-Where is the central nightlife in Buenos Aires? I felt as if it is L.A., where you need to know which bar has people because ther is no central downtown that is full of nightlife.
-I would like to come back to Buenos Aires again. However, when I do return, I would like to spend at least a week so I can take my time to explore this city. And I would do thorough research beforehand so I know which restaurants I should go eat.

A Lesson in Traveling Price

Today is our free day in Santiago, Chile. Sixteen people in our tour group wanted to take a day trip to Vina Del Mar and Valparaiso. These towns are right next to each other and they are two-hours bus ride from Santiago.

 

Our tour guide offered to take us on this tour for CHP$30,000 (USD$60).  Unfortunately for our tour guide, the hotel receptionist already told us that it  cost only CHP $3,000 (USD$6) for a one way bus ticket.

 

This morning, we took the metro (CHP$400) to the Santiago central bus station. At the bus station, a tour guide managed to convinced us to pay her CHP$17,500 (USD $35) per person for a 4-hours tour of Vina Del Mar and Valparaiso, including the round trip bus fares betwen Santiago and Vina Del Mar, all transporation in Vina Del Mar and Valparaiso, our private van and tour guide. This package is almost half the price of what we were offerd yesterday, we thought CHP $18,000 was a good deal. After a quick discussion, the group bought this package.

 

Unfortunately, we were wrong. At the Vina Del Mar bus station, we saw a poster for a similar 4-hours Vina Del Mar and Valparaiso tour for CHP $5,000. If we had took the bus to Vina Del Mar as we originally planned, we would have spend only CHP $11,000 (USD $22) per person instead. That would have been a 173% saving from our tour guide´s offer and 59% saving from the offer we took.

 

DOH!

 

Lesson of the day: For the best bargain, book tour for a city in that city!

Iguazu Falls, Brail/Argentina

• Iguazu Falls is the grand-daddy of water falls. There is no point in seeing any other waterfalls once you wee Iguazu Falls.
• Iguazu Falls should be visited from both Brazilian and Argentinian side. But if you are short on time, just visit the Argentina side.
• Brazil side has the awesome panoramic view. It also keep wow-ing as you walk along the trail and it seem there is no ending to Iguazu Falls.
• Argentinian side provides great experience. Walking the cat-walk to the Devil´s throat, while surrounded by butterflies, is an amazing experience that no where else in the world can match. The power boat to the bottom of the waterfalls is also an experience once should not missed.
• Pictures and films can´t do justice for the awesomeness of Iguazu Falls.
• I do not like to visit any place twice, but I will be more than happy to visit Iguazu Falls again (and again and again)!

 

Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

• Rio De Janeiro means River of January. It was named so because the people who settled here mistaken the bay for a river and they got here in January.
• Everything in Rio cost about the same as in the U.S. ( 1 USD is about 1.7 Real)
• All the meals in Rio cost the same (if not more) than in the U.S. (most sit down restaurant cost R$15 - 30 per entree, while slightly nicer one cost R$30 - $60 per entree). Churrascaris tasted the same as those in the U.S. 
• Fruit infused Sushi are very common (I am not a fan though)
• But alcohol is cheaper here (caipirinha cost around R$6). Liquor and juice stands are all over the sidewalk that are next to the beach.
• Flip-flop are very expensive here. Most are sold for R$20. Platform flip-flop can cost as much as R$90
• Temperature in November is very nice. Although it is hot (33C was the highest during our stay), it was not unbearable.
• Copacabana beach has white sand but the ocean is full of trash. The water is dark green (kind of like those in L.A. but with a lot more trash). We got freaked out and did not get into the Copacabana ocean water again when we saw an used condom flow-by. EW!
• Ipanema beach (right next to Copacabana) has white sand and much cleaner ocean. The water is actually blue and there were tons of people jumping and swimming in the ocean.
• Portuguese sounds like a mixed of French and Spanish to me.
• Brazilians are friendly.
• Clubs stop serving alcohol and closed at 2AM (I was shocked!).