Hi all,
Bienvenida desde Chile! Here is a quick summary of the goings-on.
Eric Rollins, Mark Sibenac, Jim Teza and I (Mark Maimone) arrived Monday morning at 0630 in Santiago, and were met by a couple of very wet roboticists (Alex Foessel and Michael Parris). They have been down here for a week already, but that day had to ride a motorcycle through the thick fog to greet us since our flight actually arrived earlier than scheduled.
We had breakfast together at Alex's sister Andrea's apartment in Santiago, then split up to handle our important tasks for the day. Alex and Michael went back to the airport to deal with Nomad's imminent arrival, and the rest of us explored a bit of downtown Santiago looking to buy some of the things we'd forgotten to pack for the trip. Alex and Michael had to deal with some transportation problems: although Nomad and parts arrived on time, the army's C-130 transport plane that was to take it to Antofagasta was stuck in the south of Chile due to a storm. They managed to negotiate its immediate transport with an airline company, a remarkable feat (we'd been told it's virtually impossible to get an international shipment in and out of the airport in the same day). However, later technical problems with that plane postponed its departure until Tuesday. The rest of the team managed to accomplish their tasks as well, surely much to the amusement of the local retailers who were forced to converse with us in broken Spanish.
We regrouped and had dinner at Chilenazo, a fine eating establishment not favored by vegetarians.
Back to Daily Updates
Last Modified on: Wed Jun 25, 1997