Day 1 – Tuesday, January 27, 2026

Immigration went smoothly - and I activated my eSIM card that I had purchased, that worked fine, too. My luggage arrived, the issue was the bike box. There were two other bikers from other flights impatiently waiting - a lady from Portugal and a Frenchman, one heading south, the other east - and had mentioned to have waited quite a while (I had even chatted with the Frenchman).

After about two hours, I felt my blood pressure going up. The staff at the airport confirmed it had landed in Santiago, but it simply wasn´t where it should have been (at the bulky luggage counter). What if someone had taken the bike out of the arrivals hall while I wasn´t looking? What if an airport worker showed a liking for it? I felt really lost and the worst part was that the arrivals hall was getting empty - all the flights from Europe had been cleared.

I went to the counter for more information, then went back to the belt - and there it was! What a relief! I suddenly felt a lot better. What took so long? Guess I shall never find out.

I navigated my way out through customs - no issues there either and then decided to find a bike shop near the airport. With some help from Chilean people - first of the many times that they proved to be indeed very friendly - I managed to find a mechanic and ordered an Uber. It is apparently prohibited in Chile, but it still operated, a large-size car came and for €15, it drove me through rahter heavy traffic to a satellite town of Santiago.

The mechnic turned out to be a cool lady, who operated out of her own house. She charged €15 for the assembly, which she did professionally. I was impressed - she mentioed Chile was an "inclusive country".

Chile is an "inclusive country"

From there, I had about an hour`s ride to my hotel in the center. I first rode through some well-meintained, but not too pretty residential area - gardeners of the municipality were busy watering the plants separating the lanes. There I got a haircut for €7 (in Georgia, I paid a fraction of this), if I recall correctly, the barber was from Haiti.

Then I followed Google´s instructions. It was a bit of a let-down, it navigated me first though an industrial area, then I had to ride through something that was a favela. Hmmm, I heard Chile, and especially Santiago, was developed, it was not a site I expected.

Back in Austria, I invested quite a while to find a centrally located hotel, close to bike shops (which I no longer needed). I thought that the central station would be close to the historic center of town. Wrong! It was a busy, but not pretty area - lots of buses, quite heavy traffic. Even though the hotel was not bad, I did not really fancy it.

Central Train Station in Santiago

Then came another sign of Chilean kindness, of which I would experience a lot more. The receptionist welcomed me with a big smile, helped me park my bike in the garage and when I told him I would have preferred to stay in the center, he told me he would cancel the reservation for the following day - as I had booked two nights. Thus I had to pay just one night.

I went to my room, took a shower - and even though it was realively early, like 4 pm, retired for the day, showered, thank sank in the pillows.

Google Timeline tells me the bike ride was some 17 kilometers long.