We’re back home from our trip to Easter Island and Santiago, and I’ve got a ton to tell you about the amazing sites we saw, the great food we ate, the wonderful people we met, and more. But rather than start at the beginning, I want to share with you the strange way our trip ended.

None of the four flights that took us home from Easter Island went the way it was supposed to, and though the first flight went awry in our favor, the others—hoo-boy!—did not.

We were scheduled to return to Santiago from Easter Island on Friday … but didn’t. Our flight was cancelled because the inbound plane intended to carry us back to mainland Chile had to turn back two hours in after a passenger reportedly had a heart attack. Which meant that we got another day in paradise thanks to LAN Airlines, which paid for our hotel room Friday night, transported us there and back, and gave us vouchers to cover our lunch and dinner.

Here’s the view we had into a caldera from the patio outside our hotel room.

We were thrilled. Stranded on Easter Island for another day? Bring it on!

Unfortunately, our luck did not hold when it later came time to leave Santiago … (more…)