Tuesday, 22 December. It was a beautiful sunny day. We soon discovered that, although the middle of the day was very warm (mid-80s), the mornings and late afternoons were chilly, requiring long sleeves or a jacket. It would have been a perfect day for the Andes tour, but Jane just wasn't up to it. We reconciled ourselves to the fact that we would not be taking any more tours in Santiago. I even had the concierge check on getting a flight home tonight instead of Wednesday, but it wasn't possible.

We had the big breakfast buffet at about 9:30, then read in the lobby. I discovered that I could use one of several hotel computers in the lobby to access the Internet. That gave me access to our e-mail. There was one from our son Joseph with a picture showing our car with at least 18 inches of snow on the roof. I also could check on the weather in Atlanta and Washington, D.C. and found that our flight home would have no problems with the weather.

We skipped lunch in view of the big breakfast. Jane ordered some soup from room service in the late afternoon and didn't want dinner. At 6:00 I walked a few blocks to Avenida Providencia to look around. The concierge told me that there were many restaurants there, and I thought I'd eat dinner there, too. It took about ten minutes to get there.

View across Mapocho  toward Providencia

Christmas carolers at the Sheraton

Wednesday, 23 December. Another beautiful day and another breakfast buffet, finishing at 10:00. Again we read in the lobby, and I used the hotel computer. Our e-mail included pictures of Joseph and Julia shoveling the snow off of our long driveway at Massanutten so we could get the car in the garage on our return. How thoughtful!

I went to the hotel spa for some exercise around noon. Then, of course, we had to pack again, for the last time, thank goodness. We had sandwiches at 4:30, and I paid our bill. The bus picked us up at 6:00 and dropped us at the airport. We had a light dinner in a restaurant there, knowing we'd have another meal on the plane. I still had a few pesos left and changed them back to dollars at a nearby booth.  (The passenger terminal where we waited was damaged by the 27 February 2010 earthquake.)

Our 10:15 Delta flight was on time, and dinner was served about an hour later. The flight was smooth and uneventful.

Thursday, 24 December. A small breakfast was served about 5:00 a.m. EST. (We gained two hours from Santiago time, one from the change of time zones, the other because they were on daylight saving time). We arrived in Atlanta at 6:00 a.m. Air traffic seemed to be lighter than usual, and we got through immigration and customs quickly.

Our 9:30 flight to Washington Dulles pulled away on time and, due to light traffic, took off immediately, a rare thing in Atlanta. As a result, we landed at Dulles at 11:00, half an hour early. Joseph found us just as I pulled our luggage off the carrousel. He drove us in our car to his home Culpeper. It was already 2:00, so we had lunch there before driving on to Massanutten. It was nearly 4:00 when we got home, and we were very happy to be there.

Observations. This was an exceptionally interesting and educational trip. The southern leg, between the Falklands and Puerto Montt, was something especially new and unusual for us. Unfortunately though, we weren't able to enjoy it to its fullest because Jane was ill for most of it.

The weather was a surprise to many of the passengers. There's no doubt that it's cool and very windy in southern South America, even in the summer (December-March). I checked the weather on the Internet beforehand and knew what to expect. In fact, we got less rain than I expected, so we were lucky there. It would be a little warmer to go in February as we originally intended, but there also would be less snow on the mountains, a trade off I wouldn't want to make.

The biggest disappointment of the trip was with HAL, especially their antagonistic reaction to the incident with the flooded stateroom. In addition, though, service on the Veendam was spotty at best. It was always unpleasant to eat in the Lido cafeteria because so few of the servers or waiters were either efficient or solicitous of the passengers. The Rembrandt dining room was better, but again, only a few of the waiters were really good. I attribute much of this to the now prevalent practice of tipping the crew en masse instead of tipping individuals. There is no incentive for doing more than the minimum necessary to keep from losing your job. Also, the HAL transfers on both ends were poorly handled. The Veendam itself (built in 1996, refitted in 2006) is showing her age. Beside our flooding incident, we had to call twice for different electrical problems.

We also had a bad impression of Brazil. The overt anti-Americanism of the government showed itself in the visa process even before the trip. Brazil has an official policy of making it as difficult and expensive as possible for U.S. citizens to obtain visas to visit there, apparently in retaliation for U.S. visa requirements for their people. Their disruption of the debarkation process for passengers leaving the Veendam in Rio was another manifestation of the same attitude. And we weren't favorably impressed by Rio, either. It was dirty and run down. However, I think the dire warnings of our travel agent (e.g., unsafe to take a taxi or to walk on the street except in a group) were overblown.

On the other hand, we were very favorably impressed with Chile, possibly because we saw more of it. The variety from south to north is amazing, like going from Alaska to California, only with the Rocky Mountains as a backdrop all the way. And Santiago is a really wonderful city, very clean and modern, with excellent roads and South America's most extensive subway system. Even its centuries old historical areas sparkle. To be fair, the population of the Santiago metropolitan area (about 5,000,000) is only about half that of Rio's. And the weather was bad most of the time we were in Rio.

All in all, I would say that this was a really great trip - in theory. Unfortunately the execution wasn't so great.