Jenny Explores Chile's Atacama Desert and Torres del Paine

My husband, Mike, and I excitedly left the US last night for our much anticipated trip to Chile. We decided to fly LAN Chile. Both of us were very impressed with the services we received. I was mostly happy because I could play my own personal games of Tetrus!! I must have played for half the flight down. We arrived to Santiago early in the morning. It was a fairly painless customs process. We paid our Visa Reciprocity fee to enter into the country, and then went off in search of our bags at the baggage claim. We were so happy to see that they arrived. There is a taxi and airport shuttle stand at the end of the baggage claim. We were able to easily arrange a shuttle to the Hotel Orly. It only took about half an hour to arrive to our hotel in downtown Santiago. We LOVED the Hotel Orly. The staff was more than helpful and it was so clean. We could not check in right away, since it was 7:00 AM. So we set our bags down and went to drink coffee in the restaurant next door. They actually served espresso, not instant coffee. We came back to the hotel and checked into our room -- then proceeded to take a much needed nap. About noon, we met our guide to take a tour of Santiago. I highly recommend doing a city tour to give you a good perspective of how to get around town. Our guide was very knowledgeable and funny. That evening, we met some friends for drinks and dinner.