aggienaut | Entries tagged with chile

Okay you'd think I'd know better by now about trying to write an LJ entry directly in the browser on my phone, having had a similar thing happened too many times already. But i thought it would be safe if i was in a place with a stable internet connection, so I was writing an entry here in the conference center during presentations i wasn't interested in. I was almost done when the browser refreshed itself and the "restore from draft" brought in the previous day's already posted entry, the one I'd just spent maybe an hour altogether on was lost completely. It's not just a waste of my time but it seems to use a fair bit of phone battery having it open to the writing screen for awhile and i only have a finite amount of battery that needs to last me from now (Friday afternoon) all the way till i arrive in Australia now.

Amd anyway i absolutely hate rewriting the same thing twice so as happens in this case you'll get a severely shortened version of what I'd just written.

Thursday, September 7th - at the conference all day. I had written several paragraphs about it but well you can look at some slides https://photos.app.goo.gl/ikvMDsSFTXVsktRM7

One cause of frustration for me had been that you needed a different pair of translation headphones for the upstairs two halls versus the downstairs two halls. You needed to give your ID card as collateral for the headphones and re exchange them between floors. But this day i realized i could get one pair with my US drivers license amd the other with my Australian DL, I wish I'd thought of this earlier!

As i was leaving at 18:30 a friend asked if i was going to the party. What party? Turns out "the Scandinavians" were hosting a reception upstairs. Free booze!

I don't know why, they don't need to "wine amd dine" us, they already have the next Apimondia in Copenhagen 2025 locked in.

Speaking of wine amd dining, I was recounting in the presence of a Slovenian how the Russian delegation had literally taken every voting delegate out to dinner in 2017 to secure the 2021 conference, amd he said Slovenia actually had it more or less locked in until an hour before the vote the Russians started slipping voting delegates envelopes of money!

I'm really concerned Dubai will do something like that this year to beat out the Tanzanians, who have a much bigger friendlier delegation but I'm sure Dubai has deep deep bags of money.

After only half an hour Doug asked me if i was ready to go yet. I rather think not! He then went home. I was a bit surprised i thought he'd love mingling at the event but he is 74 after all and i think feels pretty tired after a long day of conferencing.

I stayed, it turned into quite the dance party. It was funny seeing a tall Dane in a horned viking helmet amd cape dancing away with a Tanzanian woman in maasai robes, the moderator of one of the sessions who had seemed so serious amd professional now totally rocking out, etc etc people from all over the place amd a wide range of ages, among the top people in their industry from around the world, totally rocking out to the latest Latin hits (the Scandinavians really restrained themselves amd only played one Abba song).

Took an uber back to the hotel, arrived at first 12:00.

Friday, September 8th - Doug declined to get up when i did at 7, saying he didn't feel like going to the conference today, would rather go play table tennis somewhere. Packed my stuff amd came here to the conference center with all my luggage.

Arriving, asked the young man at the front registration desk if there was somewhere i could put my luggage, he said not officially but he could watch it unofficially for a tip of any amount ("even just a dollar, whatever"). I think I'll leave him with all my extra pesos over what i need to get to the airport, which might be as many as 10,000 ($12), I'd rather give them directly to someone who has done of a favor than re exchange them at a huge loss. If he doesn't run off with my bag!

Amd that brings us to now, it's 13:00, middle of the day. This evening there's closing ceremonies (amd the Tanzania vs Dubai vote!) then i go to the airport to fly just after midnight to Auckland (14 hours) amd thence on to Melbourne (4 hours)

So starting last night actually, just after i got in bed i received a text from the biosecurity department of New South Wales asking if I was still interested in working for them and if so to please fill out the application linked in an email they sent me August 21st -- I'd been anxiously awaiting that email amd had missed it! But the application wants me to upload a resume amd cover letter amd i didn't bring my laptop. I'm going to have to see if i can find a copy of my resume I've perhaps emailed somewhere amd i guess type a cover letter on my phone which sounds really tedious to me but i suppose is doable.

Wednesday September 6th - i feel like i already don't remember this morning very well. More interesting talks. I take a lot of pictures of interesting slides, i put them all in a google album for some interested friends, if you want to have a look, they're here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/ikvMDsSFTXVsktRM7

The poster session was actually kind of interesting, like dozens of mini presentations, usually the person behind the poster was standing next to it to answer questions.

I found the food for lunch, there's only like three food carts, not many options.

At 18:10 I started looking for Doug so we could leave before the rush at 18:30. Couldn't find him until 18:30 anyway though. Took half an hour on both uber amd didi before the latter found us a driver. It was raining heavily which is probably why it was extra hard today. Taking pity on all the other people still waiting we asked around if anyone else needed a ride to the same neighborhood amd found a Brazilian couple.

With the bad traffic it took an hour to get to our hotel. The Brazilian couple was very nice AND I feel like i had a brush with a celebrity:

You've heard of the Africanized ("killer") bees right? They were accidentally released by Dr Warwick Kerr in 1956 in Brazil. This Brazilian man said his father worked for Dr Kerr at the time!

I've heard conflicting reports how it exactly happened so i was eager to ask. I asked if it was true someone accidentally removed the queen excluder that released the queens amd he confirmed it was. But he said even though it quite probably wasn't Dr Kerr himself, Dr Kerr would never tell who actually did it, taking all responsibility himself.

For dinner i talked Doug into accompanying me to the same restaurant i went to yesterday. Once again the very friendly staff eagerly welcomed us in. The same waiter who spoke some English helped us amd we found out he's Venezuelan!

Once again food came quickly, was delicious, amd was more than enough. Doug will have more than half a sandwich for lunch tomorrow.

Monday, September 4th, Santiago, Chile - having had terrible sleep or lack thereof on the overnight flight, after breakfast i slept till 11:30 or so. Then my friend Doug came over.

I had met Doug in Nigeria in 2012. Later we went to the beekeeping conference in Tanzania together in 2015 amd he's visited me several times in Australia. He's also here to attend the beekeeping conference and we're sharing a room, though he was already in country a few days at an airbnb.

He hadn't had breakfast so we went to a restaurant a few doors down from the hotel amd i just had a coffee while he had scrambled eggs.

Then it was 13:00 amd the conference opening ceremonies would begin at 16:00. I had wanted to do a city tour but now there wasn't time. My other thing i wanted to do was go to this preColombian museum but it was apparently closed on Mondays so we just walked around the area. The hotel seems to be in a modern central business district area. We found a nice park.

Presently it was 15:00 so i called up a ride on DiDi to take us to the conference center. Our driver didn't speak any English but seemed very friendly amd personable. Ride took maybe fifteen minutes amd cost 4,000 Chilean pesos ($4.70).

Registration consisted of having a QR code we'd been emailed scanned which apparently brought up all our registration information immediately, was handed our bags amd name tags. Had to surrender my driver's license to get the translation headphones.

Instant translation only available in English, Spanish amd Portuguese, sorry France. Bunch of speeches, some traditional dances.

Then we all retired to the expo room for free wine amd cheese. Doug got to talking to some people he knew amd through them we made another friend or two, that's how we do.

Wine glasses ran out just before i got to the front of that very long line. 😒 they still had wine just no glasses. Those of us still in line then scavenged abandoned empty wine glasses, scoured them clean with paper towels amd partook.

It finished around 19:00 amd I was surprised to find it still light outside, it'd've been dark by now in Colombia but, though they're on the same longitude Colombia is two hours earlier (this always ties my brain in knots but it means when the clock says 17:00 in Colombia it says 19:00 in chile but it's the same "real" time relative to the sun)

My phone was at 3% so i couldn't use didi amd Doug had no internet connection. We tried just going to the street to get a cab amd it seemed most of the participants were there trying to figure out how to get to their hotels. Cabs were trying to get customers but the one we talked to wanted 25,000, six times what it had cost us to get here.

So we went back into the convention hall where Doug could connect to the wifi to get an uber, amd there we found the Apimondia president Jeff Pettis doing the exact same thing.

Uber took us back to our hotel for 12,000. Cabbies are always complaining about rideshares but if they didn't always try to take advantage of us we wouldn't always go to rideshares for a fair rate.

I was looking forward to a hot shower after last hotel didn't have hot water amd so i felt very alarmed amd displeased when the shower never got more than slightly less than lukewarm. I was just going to grumble to myself but Doug exhorted me to call the front desk amd complain immediately amd so i actually did so. I cynically didn't expect it to accomplish anything but they sent a maintenance guy up who, i felt kind of with a bit of attitude demonstrated that the water was indeed hot. But it definitely hadn't been five minutes earlier so he must have fixed something before he came knocking. Either way, problem solved.

Tomorrow, it begins!

Sunday, September 3rd - for once we didn't have to get up early .. but we still got up out of habit around 6:30. Power was out at the hotel. Packed our things, had breakfast, Cristina made more sandwiches -- for our lunch and to eat on the plane, amd she's so kind hearted, she made a sandwich for our driver too.

Just around 8:50 our driver arrived amd we checked out of our hotel. As we were at an intersection still in Santa Marta he handed change to a woman who appeared to be barely even trying to beg. During the drive he enthusiastically hailed a police officer at a checkpoint whom i gathered was the son of a friend. Said young officer semi jokingly demanded who i was amd our driver said "family," which is funny because we could hardly look more unrelated. I think part of the underlying foundation of this interchange may be that he's not actually a registered taxi driver (his car isn't yellow amd doesn't have the big registration number emblazoned on its side that official taxis do). Later, closer to cartagena he also greeted a fellow driver he knew whom he recognized on the road with some honking as he pulled beside him.

We arrived without incident at the cartagena airport around 12:30, with 7 hours till our flight. Ordered coffee at the Colombian chain Juan Valdez just so we could sit there. Well i ordered coffee (Colombian coffee meets my approval) amd Cristina ordered a malteado which was some kind of iced non-caffeinated beverage that probably has a Starbucks equivalent but I'm not that familiar with such mysteries.

Finally at four we figured we could check into our flight being as it was now three hours away.

There was some confusion as to whether we'd be able to sit together since the flights had been booked separately. Then i thought the airline employee said that was no problem. Then she asked if we'd like to go on an earlier flight. "Both of us? Sure" says i, amd she puts us both on a flight leaving half an hour earlier. But Cristina was several seats back, i in 2K amd she got 5c or some such. It seemed kind the employee had just gone through so much trouble to put us on an earlier flight that i didn't want to be a nuisance amd insist she keep messing with the system in hopes of seating us together. It also all made me wonder if if we HAD tried to check in much earlier maybe we could have gotten on a much earlier flight.

Anyway through security to the gates we went. When we boarded the flight i realized why she couldn't seat us together: my seat was in "economy plus" or some such, with lots of leg room amd only four seats across the plane instead of six, basically the middle seats had been transformed to tables, amd Cristina was back in the first row of normal economy. I remembered now having seen that the upgrade was like only $5 or something amd having taken it. I'd have preferred to sit next to Cristina than have all this extra room though.

Flight took off at 18:30. Cartagena looked beautiful through the clouds, amd during the flight there was a lot of lightning below us. In all my travels i don't think I've actually flown over such a thunderstorm before.

Landed at 20:04, proceeded together to the baggage claim. There we waited for Cristina's bag amd hoped not to see mine, which fortunately we didn't. It'll hopefully be waiting for me in Santiago.

Proceeded to the security for the international departures. Amd here at 20:38 I had to say goodbye to Cristina. I don't think i can remember ever being so sad to part from someone. Hopefully I'll see her again in just a matter of weeks, after having the visa approved!

Arrived at my flights gate just in time to walk right into boarding. This flight I'm in seat 1K, the upgrade being like $30. This time no regrets!

As we took off a weird thing happened. We started accelerating down the runway amd then almost immediately after a second or two the captain appeared to put the breaks on amd we rapidly decelerated. We then taxied around a bit amd i was wondering if we'd ever know what just happened when the captain came on the intercom amd it sounded like he said there was a landing plane in our flight path or something alarming like that. Then we took off successfully.

Currently in flight. I'm not sure there's any meals on this flight which will be a first for me on an international flight!

Okay yes there were no meals, and they didn't even provide the customary airplane blankets amd I'd just boarded in shorts so i was very cold. Fortunately i had my jacket but that of course only covered half of me. So it was a very uncomfortable flight.

Arrived in the dark of night at 5:30. The Santiago airport is big amd modern. Americans don't need a visa for chile but at passport control they give you a receipt-like "tourist card" that the internet says I'll be in trouble if i lose, I'll need to show it when i leave.

There being no ATM in the airport amd knowing I'd have to pay a taxi i had to exchange dollars at the airport money exchange. I hate them because they generally give a worse rate than an ATM. What's the point of having a staffed business that provides a markedly worse service than a ubiquitous machine?

The official exchange rate is 854.70 Chilean pesos to the dollar. I exchanged $60 for 37,000 pesos (1 : 616.67).

Next Google maps told me if i took the didi rideshare to my hotel it should be "14,000-16,000 pesos" but since they had a very official looking "official taxis" coordinator right out the door i let them put me directly into an official taxi, who sped like a demon for half an hour across town and charged me 28,000 ... well there goes most of the money i exchanged already. 😒

It was still only 7am at this point amd still dark. Hotel receptionist was nice. He said of course check in isn't till 15:00 but i could pay $50 for early check-in which i did. I asked if I'd get breakfast with that amd he shrugged amd said sure. So i went up to my room, changed into warmer clothes (it's chilly in chile), came down amd ate (pretty good food), amd then i slept till around 11:30. This is my only free day though before opening ceremonies at four so I'd like to see if i can see the city before