May 20 – 22
On Tuesday, May 19th, our team of 4 Haas students departed from San Francisco enroute to Easter Island to conduct a study on the marketability of pineapples for the mainland Chilean market. After 17 hours of travel and a delayed layover in Dallas (due to aircraft mechanical problems), we arrived in Santiago, Chile for the initial phase of our assignment.
The team (Melissa, Antonio, Dan & Kelly) at Cerro San Cristobal overlooking the city of Santiago overshadowed by the Andes
During our few short days in Santiago, our team visited numerous local supermarkets and conducted surveys to get a better sense of the market for pineapples.
Antonio in front of the canned pineapple section which had 9 brands alone in this market!
Aside from the time spent with the team to both explore the city and complete the initial phase of our task, I had the chance to reunite with my Chilean host family from 2003! Having spent six months in Santiago in 2003, it was a relatively simple task to locate my former home (though a long walk from the hotel!)
Home sweet home. Just as I remembered it!
I really enjoyed the time to spend with my host family and was shocked by how much my host siblings had grown! But my greatest surprise was the discovery that my host family had had my “Chile Updates” (a little photo record of my 6 months in Chile) bound!
The only hard-bound copy of my “Chile Updates 2003” in the world…
And inside the pages of this volume, we discovered a picture taken nearly six years ago when I first arrived in Santiago!
My host family – July 2003
And of course, that meant that we had to reenact that photo to capture the passage of time. =)
My host family – May 2009
Our few days spent in Santiago passed relatively uneventfully. Many things remain the same while others have changed quite dramatically. One of the major and obviously noticeable differences is the complete overhaul of the “micro” transportation system which had been quite chaotic in 2003. Apparently, as of 2005, all the crazy yellow “micros” were replaced with a modern system where cash is no longer accepted!
A double-length new micro with printed destinations and electronic payment systems!
The new means of paying is with an electronic “BIP!” card!
What all this meant was that when one of my teammates and I were stranded near a market and wanting to take a bus, we discovered that we couldn’t pay cash! Thankfully, a compassionate driver let us onboard and explained to me how the system had changed since I had last been here. =)
After 3 days in Santiago, our team was prepared for the 5.67 hour flight to Easter Island where we would be spending the next 3 weeks researching all aspects of the pineapple value chain to determine the feasibility of our project!
Stay tuned for upcoming updates from Easter Island! (Granted, of course, that the internet cooperates!)