Arriving in chile

Well, we have arrived safe and sound.  A little over 16 hours of flight time, add to that another 12 hours of layover time during 3 stops, we made it.  From nanaimo to Vancouver, then a 4 hour wait, next on to Los angles, where we made a terrible attempt to sleep the 6 hours in the airport (those damn announcements sure do keep you up, and the lady driving the sweeper next to us was unnerving)

From LA we took Copa airlines to panama and then on to Santiago.

I have to say, I was originally worried about flying Copa air.  Visions of those South American Airlines you see on tv cam to mind.  Sitting on the floor of a twin prop cargo plane with chicken coups to lean on.  Couldn't be further from the truth.  Copa was nice, newer planes with tv entertainment systems that had games, musicandgps tracking to show where you are at.  Great service too, would fly this airline any time.

Chris, who arrived 12 hours later than us, met us on time and at the correct Starbucks!  He navigated his way around the city on his own without any issues.

  Went ou today to look at the bikes.  It seems the ones we will go with are 150cc Hondas.   We can get these for about $2000 and the dealer has already expressed interest in buying them back when done.  Of the 3 dealers we saw, Pro circuit on vita curare was the most professional.  They also offered us the service of doing all the paperwork and insurance for $120,000 Chilean pesos ( about $240).  We could spend 2 days running around ourselves, but it would still cost about $200 so that is a decent deal.  We now need to get our tax Id number Monday morning and can then buy the bikes.  Tonight, we will go out for a dinner, and then probably crash for the night and catch up on all our missing sleep. Tomorrow, we will do the tourista version of Santiago, and go see the sights.