WEATHER: In a plane and airports all day
HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Finally making it to Ushuaia
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Sitting in a plane for 27.55 hours
BUYS OF THE DAY: Some beaded bangles from Nairobi airport
WORD OF THE DAY: Are we there yet?
INTERSTING STATS FOR THE TRIP:
Touched on 3 continents
Passed through 5 airports
Sat on 4 planes for a total of 27 hours and 55 minutes
Had a total of 14 hours transit time
Travelled a total of 21,099 kilometers
Waited 1.5 hours for a delayed bag
Waited an 70 minutes sorting out hotel issue in Ushuaia
TOTAL HOURS TRAVELLING 44 hours and 55 minutes…………..
Also it is the longest blog entry I have written at 7 pages – just another stat….
Today was going to be an EPIC travel day. I knew that. It’s one of things when you travel that you really have no say in the matter, there is nothing that you can do about it and you just hope with 4 flights involved that everything goes to plan, as it can be like a domino effect, if one thing slips up the rest of the flights can quickly go pear shaped. My main worry was the connection in Cairo on the way back to London, after what happened 5 days ago; I really needed to make sure the flight left on time from Nairobi.
So it was an early start, which doesn’t help when you have such a long day ahead, but the flight time, even though so damn early worked in really well to get me back to London on time to catch my flight to South America. My taxi arrived at 2am for the 20 minute drive back to the airport. So different from when I arrived, if I have a piece of advice always try and arrive and depart Nairobi in the wee hours, you then won’t have to worry about traffic, seriously it felt like a different city flying down the road with no traffic. The transfer back I paid in local currency and it was 2000 schillings.
Your bags get scanned before you are allowed into the airport and if you’re not travelling you are not permitted into the airport building at all. There was no-one at the check-in counter when I got there, which always throws me that I am either really early or super late, but I checked in with no hassles, got my window seats to London and off loaded my 22.6kg bag. I did ask if I could get my bags checked through to South America, but as the flights were on different tickets they won’t even contemplate it anymore. Never mind I have time to kill in London, I was just trying to save myself the hassle.
I was surprised to see some duty free shops open at 3am in the morning, so I was able to re-stock up on some of the beaded bangles I bought last time I was here. They were a hit in Ethiopia and I love wearing them. They also had some bead bangles, so I bought a supply of them as well and I also managed to find a perfect present for somebody in the shops as well, which is awesome. I love it when you find ‘the perfect gift’ for some-one and I will post that when I get a chance. It was a successful spontaneous shop at 3am in the morning and it helped kill the time before having to go to the gate and security. I do have to mention checking in just inside the 2 hours seemed to make a BIG difference in the time that I had to kill. I guess when you compare it to my Paris check-in when I was at the airport 4.5 hours earlier than I needed to, the 2 hours was a walk in the park.
Our plane was late in arriving, which in turn we were 30 minutes late in leaving. I was not going to push the panic button just yet. This time can be made up in the air. Any more than 30 minutes and it is tough to make that up, but 30 minutes is do-able. I saw the UN guy again, sitting in his business class seat as I walked past, so I said hello and he looked happy to see me. He doesn’t even know what his connection time is in Cairo, but hell I had the finger on the pulse of mine. We are travelling on an A320-200 with a configuration of 3 x 3. The flight was half empty and I was lucky enough to have my whole row people free again for the 4 hour and 20 minute flight to Cairo. Still the same movies again, so I decided to get some of my French blogs done, I can slowly see the light at the end of the blog tunnel and I will be up to date before I get on my Antarctic cruise, so I will be able to write my experiences fresh each evening and I also managed to get a 90 minute kip in as well, I should try and snatch some sleep when I get the chance and also trying to keep up my fluids with drinking lots of water.
I only mentioned a few blogs ago that I haven’t used a toilet on any of the flights I have been on, well I finally used one on this flight, so I can now add that to my wild bush toilet experience that I did only once on my 8 week African Safari.
I am keeping track of this massive travel day. This is the biggest day I have had ever in my whole history of travel days so I am keeping track of the exact flying times and also the kilometers that I am travelling today. It will be interesting to see what the final figures will be at the end. So with 3675km travelled
we arrived into Cairo 10 minutes late. Not bad Captain, thanks for making up some time. As this was the sixth time at Cairo International Airport I knew exactly where I had to go and what I had to do, so I just made tracks, got through security, found some TV screens, found my gate and proceeded to make the 10 minute walk to get there. Once through gate security and sitting down I had exactly 7 minutes spare from the official boarding time to London. Now that is what I call efficient and you wouldn’t want to have dilly daddled and fluffed around off the other flight that is for sure.
We boarded late, but I am not worried about this on this section of the trip as I have an 8 hour layover in London, so it would have to be something really terrible to get me even remotely worried. Which was lucky as we sat in the plane for 90 minutes waiting for people coming off connecting flights and also people’s bags, which I am sure would also include mine, so I was happy enough to just wait and bide my time. Again I have an empty seat next to me and I love it when that happens, just having that extra room makes such a big difference to your flight experience. I just hate sitting there getting your hopes up that the seat will remain empty and you can never be certain till the doors close and then you can relax there is no last minute person running and taking that seat.
We are on a larger plane for the run to London. A Boeing 777-300 with a configuration of 3x3x3. We had 3535km to cover in a time of 4 hours and 50 minutes and once again the Captain made up some time getting us into Heathrow only 20 minutes late and that also included circling Heathrow waiting for an opportunity to open for us to land. So if you have connecting flights off flights that have left late, unless it is more than 45 minutes, don’t worry, they generally can make this up.
Heathrow is so hit and miss with immigration. Today was a miss. There were several flights all coming in at the same time, one of them the big red Kangaroo from home, meaning a lot of Australians which meant the ‘other passport’ queue was longer than normal. So I pulled out my book and read for the 1 hour and 10 minutes that I was in line. It seems a waste to me standing in the line to start with as I am a transit passenger, but as I have to see my bag I have to go through the whole process, answer questions why I was in Kenya and why I was in London and then I was stamped and passed through. Thank goodness the trolleys are free, so I lugged my bag onto the trolley and set forth to find a post office. I had to get rid of the stuff I don’t need and I had 4 postcards already UK stamped that I forgot to send, I had some Kenya postcards that were stamped with not enough Kenyan stamps, so they needed re-stamping, I had something to send to Sean and also something to send to Zeme. I could also buy Vodaphone credit for my UK sim card here, so I have stocked up another 100GBP as my back up should the South American sims decide to not play ball like Madagascar and Reunion Island ones that didn’t work properly. Nothing like a one stop shop. The lady I had was super helpful and I was on my way with one hand luggage bag lighter finally since Madagascar.
I was at terminal 3 and had to get to terminal 5. After stopping at Boots (a chemist) to re-stock my toothpaste and put it in my checked baggage I followed the signs to catch the Heathrow Express to get me to terminal 5. It is free to use the service between terminals and it took around 9 minutes from T3 to T5. A pretty awesome system and very easy to use.
My flight wasn’t till 9.30pm. T5 is 100% dedicated to British Airways flights and you have to self-check-in before heading to one of the counters to drop off your bags. They have plenty of staff at each check-in section to help with any problems or helping the doe-doe’s that don’t know what they are doing. So I checked myself in, making sure I had a window seat and proceeded to the check-in counter. As it was just past 3pm, I wasn’t able to drop my bag off till 5pm, so I went to the newsagent bought a bottle of water to try and keep my fluids up, some wine gums to chew on and a packet of chips to munch on. One thing lacking at T5 are charging stations to charge your gadgets. I did ask one of the help ladies and she said they don’t have anything like that but in each section there was the departure TV’s and there was a power outlet on each of the pylons. So I asked if I could use one of them, my laptop was getting flat and my IPod was flat as a tack and she said just do it and see what happens. So I wheeled my trolley, sat on the floor, paid 9.95GBP for 24 hours internet access and pumped out some more French blogs for 2 hours. Sitting there it hit me I was just under a third of the way through my day having been on the move for 13 hours, holy cow another 26 hours to go. OMG – how depressing.
Finally with 5pm upon me, I was able to drop off my bag, head through to security and airside. There are more places to sit, more shops to visit and more places to eat. I figured I should get something to eat, as much as I love plane food, I should get a decent meal into me. So I went to the English pub and had good ol’ bangers and mash and it was delicious. Wash that down with a glass of lemonade and 13GBP later I still had 3.5 hours to kill. I was starting to get tired now, I needed to pull up somewhere and have a sleep, I was a walking Zombie. I found a bank of chairs near the entrance to the Airline lounges so with my backpack looped around my leg and my handbag looped around my arm, I set my alarm for 8pm and I fell asleep right there for 90 minutes. At one point it got so cold, I had to whip out my Antarctic jacket to keep myself warm. It was the most uncomfortable sleep I have had with flight announcements and Hostees walking back and forth from somewhere back there it was a busy section of the airport, but I slept, whether it was uncomfortable or not, it was the best thing I could have done with my time.
T5 is massive. You have to give yourself at least 15-20 minutes to just get you to your gate. My gate opened at 8.25pm and lucky I set out at 8pm as we had to catch a lift, a train and some escalators to get to my departure lounge. This was the only flight so far that boarded on time and also left on time. It is the smallest plane so far I have been on, which is weird as it is the longest journey at 15 hours and 5 minutes. Yes that is FIFTEEN HOURS in one stint. That is definitely the longest I have sat on a plane for this whole trip and there can’t be that many flights worldwide that would be longer than that. Brisbane to LA is 13 hours and 45 minutes and Asia to Europe is around the 12 hour mark. FIFTEEN HOURS is a long time and when I heard that announcement come over I had to groan, that seemed like a lifetime with the day I had already. They are also the only airline in a long time that still do the safety briefing the old fashioned way with the jackets and the oxygen masks. Most of the airlines have them now pre-recorded and play them on the TV screens. The staff on the flight seems really friendly, especially since there seemed to be a lot of couples on this flight that weren’t sitting together, so they were getting a little bit of flak from them asking to be moved so that they could be sitting together. I’m talking of like 5 couples in my section alone, which was weird. I was still so tired and I was asleep before we had even taken off. British Airways operate a Boeing 777 on this route with a seating configuration of 3x3x3. It was an older plane, but had in seat TV’s (smaller screens than Egypt Air), plenty of leg room, spacy seatbelts, and these groovy headrests. The headrests not only have the normal wing effect as all the other airlines, but they also swung outwards, so it was like having one of those neck pillows around your head. I have to say it was the most comfortable airline seat I have sat in all trip, and I am not just saying that because I was so dead tired I would have slept on a bed of nails and said the same thing. No siree.
I was woken for dinner, which looked like a hotel meal. It was on a large tray with silverware and the food was fantastic and then it was back to sleepyland for me. I ended up sleeping for 11 hours straight.
ELEVEN HOURS. It was shame in a way as I had promised Sean that I would hit the movies hard and try and watch as many as I could in the 15 hours I had and ended up watching NONE. Which was a double shame as they had some good movies on and even more importantly ones I hadn’t seen before. Oh well, I needed the sleep. I just hope I didn’t snore too loudly. The British couple next to me didn’t say anything. It was also the bumpiest flight I have had. It pretty much was bouncing around for the whole 15 hours. Breakfast had to be suspended and we got no tea or coffee as it was that bad. The Captain at the end of the flight apologized and said they tried different altitudes, higher and lower to try and avoid it but nothing worked. It didn’t affect me too much as I was sleeping but every time I woke it was bounce bounce bounce….. I did manage to wake at the right time to see the sunrise over a new continent, with the Amazon River as a back drop, it made for an amazing photo opportunity and the second sunrise I had seen in 2 days from a plane window . That is how long I have been travelling to see 2 sunrises……
So after 15 hours and 20 minutes and 10,869km had us landing into Buenos Airies on time at 8am. I had a connecting flight, at the domestic airport at 12.20pm, so I wasn’t too concerned on time at this stage. I just had to knuckle down and not waste any time. I stood in the immigration line for 35 minutes, to get to the counter to find out I was in the wrong line as I had to purchase a visa before I could be processed. By this time I was one of the last ones anyway, so there was no line up at the visa counter, paid my 100USD for a 12 month visa and then processed straight through immigration. The bags were just coming out as I got there, so I got a free trolley and crossed my fingers my bag would be there. Out she came 20 minutes later and I was through customs and into the madness of the arrivals hall. There were so many people there it was hard to shift through them.
My first port of call was going to be an ATM to get some cash, which I found and tried and it didn’t work, so I found the information counter next and asked about the shuttle transfer to get from the international to the domestic airport. She pointed me in the right direction; I found the counter at 9.15am, paid my 15USD and was told the next departure was at 9.30am. So I had to haul some arse back through the throng of people again, out the doors and a 10 minute walk to the shuttle stop. The bus was pulling in as I arrived, so with my bag loaded underneath, I asked the lady that was checking the tickets how long the ride was and she just said it was the second stop. No worries, that information will be fine. It wasn’t until I sat down and looked at the brochure that the transfer could take 1.5 hours. Holy moley! It still gets me to the domestic airport with an hour up my sleeve, but I didn’t realize just how far away it was. With one stop in the city for people with hotels, we actually go there at 10.40am, so it was a lot quicker than what their brochure said which was a bonus for me. I was starting to get a little panicky. Little did I know that there had been another schedule change to my flight and instead of it leaving at 12.20pm it was bought forward to leave at 11.30am! I didn’t find this information out till after I had checked in and was looking at the departure board to check what gate I was leaving from and the flight was delayed and now not leaving till 1pm. Can you imagine if I had of known my flight was at 11.30am, I so would have been panicking that I was going to miss the flight. The beauty was I was in Ushuaia 2 days prior to the cruise, so I would have had a backup plan, but it is just stress that you can do without.
The only other thing I had been worrying about was my baggage limit for the flight from Buenos Airies to Ushuaia. You are only permitted to take 15kg checked-in luggage, knowing my bag was 22.6kg, I was trying to work out how much a kilo they would charge and preparing myself to shell out some doe / charge to the credit card the excess baggage cost. Well the check-in chicky looked at the weight and didn’t say a word and gave me my boarding pass – oh thank-you travel gods again. They have so been looking after me this whole trip.
Jorge Newbury Airport looks new. The gates are well signed and the seats comfy. I found an ATM here that worked, so I pulled some cash out and worked out the peso to the Aussie dollar is around 4.3, so I am just going to divide by 5 to get me by. I do love my 5 times tables! The flight was finally called and we had to be transferred by bus to the airplane that was actually an Austral plane with an Areolineas flight number. It was an MD Series 80 plane with a configuration of 2x3 seats. I was seated directly behind the exit row, and I don’t think that the exit row was clicked in to where it should have been as the leg room was nonexistent, seriously I was jam packed into this seat, and no-one else looked like a sardine. Well as it worked out, there was a mother with a baby asking if she could sit in one of the emergency exit rows, which by law is not permitted and the doors of the aircraft had closed, so I put up my hand and said she could have my 2 seats (the one next to me was empty) and I would take an exit row. The mother thanked me profusely, but little did she know about the leg room and it was really a selfish act on my behalf to get more leg room, but it also helped some-one else out, so that is still considered a good deed right!?
The flight from Buenos Airies to Ushuaia was 3 hours and 40 minutes covering 3200km. This was the last leg for me and was glad that all my connections had worked out and that my bag had made it all the way and there were no problems and no hiccups. I know I keep thanking my travel gods, but I have been seriously so lucky and touch wood that my next few flights continue on the same path, as they will be the most important of the trip as I have no buffers for delays in the next 4 flights. It was beautiful flying into Ushuaia. There were snowcapped mountains on either side and we came on over the Harbour to land at the airport. The scenery is breath taking and it looks like a beautiful spot. The city is surrounded by these snow caped mountains and with a clear blue sky it was just the pick me up I needed to get me through the last bit of the afternoon.
Once we had disembarked and entered the arrival building we had to get our hand luggage checked for fruit and vegetables, which was a little strange as they didn’t check your checked luggage once it had been collected. But anyway, there was a group of us waiting, waiting, waiting when an airport official came over and made some announcement in Spanish. With the luggage belt stopping, I was guessing it has something to do with the bags not being on the flight, and looking at the unhappy faces around me I was trying to work out what was happening. There were around 50 of us without our luggage, so I followed the first group of people out to the airline counter and stood in line and waited to be served. I asked 4 people in line if they spoke English to which they all said no and then the official guy came back out and made another announcement to which people clapped. Okay so I’m guessing some good news. Some-one yelled out if he could make an announcemt in English and he said our bags were on the next flight which was due to arrive in 20 minutes, so hold tight, get a drink and they will make an announcement when the bags some through. So I went to the airport café, ordered a coke and jumped onto the free Wi-Fi for the next 45 minutes, as that flight was also delayed in landing. What’s another 45 minutes right? So the official found me and said come on in the bags are coming off, so I went back to the carousel and he was pulling off bags from our flight, which mine wasn’t there, but that’s okay there were still more coming. Well the people on that flight were collecting their bags and there were less and less bags on the belt and the official was starting to look worried that my bag wasn’t there when the belt stopped and the bag man come out and said that’s it, and I am still standing bag-less. I just felt like curling up on the floor and crying, I was just so tired, and then he moved a bag on the other side of the belt and there was my beautiful bag and I am sure my smile would have lit up a small village!!! Thank-you, Thank-you, Thank-you…..
There we no flies on me, I was straight out the doors, passing the information desk I asked how much a taxi would cost to give me an idea so I wouldn’t get ripped off, and I was in the car and on my way in 10 seconds flat. The airport is only a 10 minute ride and I was safely deposited at my hotel for 20 pesos (4AUD) and at reception thinking of a long shower and getting into bed. Well you could imagine my shock when the check-in guy told me there was no reservation for me. WHAT!!!! I booked this over 12 months ago, there has to be a booking for me. There just has to. He called some-one, who called him back, to which I got the same answer. We have no booking for you and the hotel is full. Okay this is the last thing I needed and I was T-I-R-E-D. I didn’t have any vouchers (what kind of travel agent am I) so I asked if he had a Gap Adventures contact, which thankfully they did. So a call was made and I spoke to the G Rep and was told that some of us had been moved to a different hotel, she will check for me and call back. So I only had to wait 15 minutes and the check-in dude came over with the name of the new hotel and he called a taxi for me. Man it was the last thing that I needed, but at least I had somewhere to sleep and was hoping that the change of hotel was as nice as the one that I was leaving otherwise I was going to say something.
Well as we pulled into the Las Lengas, it was nice and I think nicer than the other hotel and certainly in a better location, within walking distance to the main drag, so with it only costing me an additional 4AUD for another taxi I was feeling okay about the change of hotel. So I announced I wanted to check in and gave my name, the guy couldn’t find a reservation for me. Okay this was getting out of control, there has to be a booking there for me. He made a phone call and was shaking his head when he put the phone down, so I told him I was with Gap Adventures, so he typed that into the system and wallah 1 room for Gap. That has to be mine, if not I don’t care I’m taking it. So after another small scare I had a room that faced out to the beautiful snowcapped mountains that surround this picturesque town.
I MADE IT TO USHUAIA!!! So the travel gods may have gone on a lunch break for the last 3 hours of my Epic journey, but the most important thing was I was here, anything after that could be fixed somehow. So I was not too hard on them with the last kerfuffle that added an additional 3 hours to my travel adventure.
I did manage to stay awake, eat dinner in the hotel restaurant, to which the menu was all in Spanish and the waiter brokenly translated in English what was on offer and then I was back to my room for some desperately needed sleep in a bed after being on the go for 47 hours in total. That was the biggest travel day I have ever had EVER and I challenge anyone that has a bigger day than that to beat mine. It was EPIC and it is still hard to believe that in 3 day’s time I will be conquering the last continent and seeing icebergs and penguins and departing from the most southern city in the world.
I AM GOING TO ANTARCTICA – and the 47 hours will be worth the effort I am sure…..
Goodnight people I am sooooo tire…………snore snore snore snore….
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