HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: We’re off the ship
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Saying good-bye
BUYS OF THE DAY: My Argentinian steak at the airport
WORD OF THE DAY: I still hate good-byes……
I woke to Jules telling me it was 6.45am.
I had fallen asleep with my mobile in my hand and I finally I have network again. Even in my drunken stupor I knew this fact. Ahhhh back in the land of technology!!! Thank goodness no drunk calling or messages after checking the history. We had breakfast at 7am and then our transfer to the airport was at 8am. To say I felt a little dodgy is an understatement. I think I was still drunk! I had 85% of my bag packed and Jules did the final sweep of the cabin before we left, so I know that nothing was left behind. Breakfast was a blur and then we had to sit in the Discovery Lounge till we were cleared by port authorities to disembark. It was sad to say goodbye to some of the staff. Jeff and Ben the main guys for me. I’m gonna miss you. Terrific crew all round and it was great talking to you all in the bar last night. See there are something’s I do remember, oh and I had my camera with pictures to help! We didn’t leave the actual port till after 8.30am, after getting some of the bags on the coach randomly searched. Lucky our flight wasn’t till 10.30am, so there was enough fluff time.
The check-in staff at the airport were super-efficient and had checked us all in within 20 minutes. Now that is the way to do it. There is a departure tax that needed to be paid of 28 pesos (it’s like 5AUD), you wonder why they bother and then we went and sat in the café and got on the FREE internet, which made a nice change from the rip internet on the ship was. I also got a Pepsi to try and give me a lift as I was starting to feel half human again! There was much uploading and downloading happening and I managed to get 3 blogs up for Antarctica which is a great start. I only have 10 more to post. So get ready for an amazing read for the next few days. Grab a coffee and a biscuit and enjoy!!!! I hope all my information on there is right, as I have given my blog address to the entire ship on the guest email list. Well it is to the best of my knowledge and that is all I can do right!
The group has been spread all over the plane and I have the arse seat of the plane in row 32 right next to the engine. Great. But at least there was room for all my bags. I am now back to my Intrepid bag till at least Quito and I can off load some of the winter stuff I no longer need and get some room back in my backpack. In my defence I only have an 8 hour layover in Santiago and I am trying to avoid opening the backpack, so I have the essentials in the Intrepid bag you know PJ’s, toothbrush, change of clothes etc…. Thinking about it now, I guess I have done the right thing by booking a hotel room with me getting in at 11pm, but I had a longer layover in London coming here, but it was during the day, I am not sure I would want to be hanging around a Chile Airport in the wee hours with all my bags.
We left 45 minutes late, but I am not worried as I had a 5 hour layover in Buenos Aires. The 3.5 hour flight and the plane were ordinary. I was listening to my IPod for about half the way, when I got told I wasn’t allowed to use the IPod at all during the flight. Um, the other Hostees knew I was using it and they didn’t have a problem and on the flight down they didn’t seem to mind either. Bitch. I rekon she knew I was hung over and was just being difficult. Man it made the shitty flight just drag on that much more. How the hell did I travel 15 hours in one stretch?
So we arrived into Buenos Aires at 3pm. Jules and Jeremy had to fly to catch the shuttle to the international airport. For once I was smart with my flights (I know I shock myself sometimes) and I didn’t need to change airports, which is great as it is a bit of a bugger and it takes 1.5 hours. I found the LAN check-in counter and asked if it was too early to check-in, which it was for my bag but not for my boarding passes. I ask if my bag could be checked all the way through to Quito, which it can, so that is great news that once it is checked in here this afternoon, I won’t see it till tomorrow afternoon at 3.30pm in Quito. Awesome. So lucky I had packed that Intrepid bag with some cloths and PJ’s. Gee 2 smarts in one day. I’m scaring myself.
I can’t check my bag in till 5.45pm, so I had 3 hours to kill. I found a café, ordered a Caesar salad, a coke (still need a pick me up) and a bottle of water and I set up my office for the afternoon. I had my IPod charging via my notebook and I have my Blackberry to the side and getting back in touch with people via text messages. The office is now open. Buenos Aires don’t have and public Wi-Fi’s available downstairs, free or paid. I would have been happy to pay some money to get some more blogs up but that will just have to wait till tonight.
I can’t believe that I will be seeing Amy tomorrow and that it is my birthday in 8 days! I have been away from home for 237 days and after the Galapagos I am on the last section of my trip. Well it is a long section of 154 days, and technically is it the last section I have that’s pre-booked, but it is scary that the time has flown and I am really happy to report that all is going well. I hear from my best friend via text message at least 2-3 days a week, my boss/mate is in touch once a week and I have Facebook for the rest of the world. So I know what’s happening at home, keeping in touch with all the news and gossip and I am so lucky to be making AWESOME friends along the way and I am also in regular contact with them. I really am super lucky. But the last ‘booked section’ of my trip. Holy cow.
So at 5.45pm came and I went and stood in line for 30 minutes to check my bag. I actually got the same girl and she remembered me which was sweet. I checked that I had window seats for the next flights, and they weren’t so she did some reshuffling for me and after dropping my 20kg back off I left the counter with my next 3 boarding passes for the next 24 hours. I have checked my bag all the way through to Quito, so I won’t need to see that sucker until tomorrow afternoon. That’s cool. I hope they put it in a safe spot for the 9 hours we are in Chile. That bag is my life, but nothing that can’t be replaced; all my ‘worldly’ possessions are always in my hand luggage, right down to my power cords for all my gadgets.
There is a large eatery upstairs in the departures, so I pulled up a table and decided to have something decent to eat for dinner. The flight leaves at 8.40pm, so I am sure they won’t be serving us anything too substantial, so while in Argentina there is only one thing to have – MEAT! I had a beautifully cooked piece of beef with….fries….. Okay so not the greatest side dish but the steak was so tender, and much better than the lettuce salad, um I mean Caesar salad I had eaten downstairs. They also had Wi-Fi to purchase in this section of the airport, so I bought 2 hours for 5AUD and got all but the last entry loaded onto the blog. It is always a mission, but rewarding once I have them all posted. I hope you enjoy reading my Antarctica entries. 2 hours later it was time to start making my way to the gate and security. As George Newbury is mainly a domestic Airport, they have 2 special gates for the few international flights that depart from here. As you need to pass through immigration and security it is located at one end of the terminal. There were no people waiting when I got there, so I cruised through both the security screening and also immigration to find myself directly in the duty free shop. Very clever planning, you have to walk through duty free to get to the departure lounges. Very smart indeed. I am still not really tempted to buy duty free. I always have a look at the perfumes and stop for a spray, nothing like a bit of perfume to try and help remove that stale ‘traveller’ smell when you have been going for over 13 hours. But that is the extent of my duty free shopping.
We bordered the flight 45 minutes late, but once again it doesn’t affect me. I have a hotel room booked at the Holiday Inn Airport, so it just means I get there later. I have no idea on how far the ‘airport’ hotel is from the actual airport. London Heathrow calls all their hotels airport hotels but you have to catch a bus to them as they are located around 10 minutes from the terminals. Oh well I am sure there will be some-one to ask on the other side. I also know Australians need a visa for Chile that you get on arrival. I wonder as my stay is only 9 hours if I could be exempt from it this as a transit passenger? Probably not, but I will ask the question as I am pretty sure it is like 50USD! Well another thing I will have to just wait and see.
I travelled LAN; they were LAN Chile then, over 10 years ago. Even back then I remember their planes being comfortable, new and great to travel on and it’s nice to see this has not changed in the last decade since my last flight with them. Tonight I was travelling on an older plane, an A320, drop TV screens every 5 seats, but the seats are still roomy, the arm rests are high and plenty of seat belt space and that is after a 12 day cruise of 3 square meals a day and it still fits! My travel god was shining and I had a spare seat next to me again. I have been SO SO lucky! It really makes a difference to me to have that spare seat and I haven’t even been asking for them to block them off. Maybe this is the upside of checking in 6 hours before your flights. Fly time was 2 hours and 5 minutes, so a walk in the park really getting us into Santiago at 11.30pm.
Australians have to get a visa for Chile. It is called a reciprocal visa. We charge the Chileans to come into our country, so tit for tat and they charge us. Argentina is the same, but at least theirs seems better value for money if you are coming back to the country, as I am. The Argentines charge 100USD and it’s valid for 1 year. The Chilean visa is per visit at 61USD a pop. I asked about being a transit passenger, but as I am clearing immigration I have to pay. I guess I could do a runner or something. The visa has to be done before you can stand in the immigration line, a trap for new players if you don’t know this; they issue the visa at a separate counter. The Chile stop is costing me an arm and a leg for the 9 hours I’m actually here. The hotel was $199 and the visa $61. Holy Moley, I had no other option so these things you just have to suck up. I guess I could have just stayed at the airport, but to lie in a bed and have a shower was nearly worth the $$$ - nearly. I took the pen and all the toiletries to make sure I tried to get all my money’s worth. Yeah that will show them….. not.
I felt weird walking straight past the baggage carousel knowing that my bag is somewhere safely stored for my flight in the morning, well hopefully. Some people like to see their bags on stops like this, but for me it is so much more hassle free and I have blind faith in the airlines that the system will work. I did still scan the bags though going round, just to make sure I didn’t see my bag there, which it wasn’t, but I feel all most nude without that thing leaving an airport. We had one security screen to go through to be able exit the arrivals hall looking for plant and animal products being bought into Chile. There was a hotel booking desk just on the other side, so I walked up and asked them how far the Holiday Inn was and he replied with hand gestures just through the doors. Hmmmm seems too good to be true, but I walked out of arrivals and into the cool early morning hours of Chile and like a halo shining brightly and small trumpets playing there was the Holiday Inn 50m away!!! Yip yay! I felt like doing a happy dance right there and then!
Check-in was simple and I was given my key and in the room by 12.15am. The hotel is quite funky with a bank of flat screen computers set up around the lobby bar and trust me I have seen some pretty old and dorky airport hotels including the ones in LA are that are very ordinary. But this place was nice and made me feel a little better with the price I had paid. I had access to free Wi-Fi in my room and considering at this point I have been travelling for 14 hours and on little, drunken sleep last night I am feeling remarkably okay and booted up the computer. I did have some housekeeping to do with bank accounts, storage bills etc. I need to reply to some emails, but I will wait till I am feeling a little bit more refreshed before I tackle those tomorrow, well today now. So with the TV on, Bachelor Pad was on E, so I stayed up and watched that as I started the process of loading my Antarctic pictures to Facebook. Once again I have only been off FB for the last 12 days and they have changed the format for loading pictures. I think it is an improvement, but I am still reserving judgment on that for now.
I think I could have stayed up longer, but as I turned the lights off and the green numbers on the bedside clock flashed 2.23am, it was time to count penguins and get some shut eye for the last part of my travel day in 4 hour’s time.
Good night or good morning from the Holiday Inn in Santiago.
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