20080111 - South America - Santiago Airport

After an uneventful flight from Buenos Aires, we finally arrived Santiago, Chile. We collected our luggage and took our passports to go through the immigration line only to discover that as US citizens we needed to pay a $132.00 reciprocity fee per person for a visa to enter the country (translate to leave the airport). In addition to that news we discovered that their credit card machine was down and we needed to pay it in cash before we could leave. Needless to say after our day at the Buenos Aires airport we were not very happy campers, but as luck would have it, we did have the cash so were able to leave the airport and take a taxi to Santiago. The fee attaches to your passport so as long as we have these passports we can return to Chile without additional fees. After the fact (well after the fact) Rich said he vaguely remembered reading something about an additional fee. Of course this is the risk you take when you make your own arrangements, you do not have an experienced ‘other’ who can forewarn you of various ‘surprises’ you might encounter.