This is one of those travelling adventures we are happy our families get to hear about when it is over and they know we are safe and sound – not when we are watching bits of plane rattle in ways they really shouldn’t.
From my last blog you will know we were stuck at the airport in Arequipa. Our plane was delayed – because it was broken. So broken they had to fly in a new one. So we sat around an airport with all the excitement factor of Canberra airport for about 9 hours. They did give us a meal voucher and we had a lunch of what is kind of the national Peruvian dish – stir fried beef, onion and capsicum served with chips and rice. It is pretty nice.
But that didn’t fill in much time, so we wandered the length of the airport a few times, bought and ate chocolate, bought books and read, but were generally bored.
Finally after 9pm, our new plane arrived. I use the word “new” in the sense that it was a different plane because there is nothing about our Sky airlines plane that could be described as new. It was so old the carpet was fraying, the seats basic, hard and missing the headrest covers so you hair stuck to the Velcro. The seats were so hard it was like sitting on a wooden bench – which vibrated – for 5 hours. We were in the last row, which meant that we also got frozen at each stop when they opened the back door.
Yes, I did say each stop – there were three. At the first one we got out and were quite quickly and efficiently processed through Chilean Customs and Immigration, the next one we just sat there and froze as they loaded food (yes they did give us actually quite decent food for dinner at 1.30am) and the third stop was Santiago where we could finally get out, into a cab and our hostel.
Take off and landing in our ancient plane was a shaky experience. On the first takeoff Anna and I agreed that we would just be thankful to make it to Santiago alive, although flying a very dodgy airline did complete the South American experience. The landings confirmed this, hard and bouncy would be a couple of pretty accurate adjectives. But we did make it and despite all the discomfort and tiredness, we shouldn’t complain, not after we found out what the Dutch girl sitting next to us had gone through.
When we checked in, we had our bags searched to the point that we had to completely unpack our packs (the woman doing my bag even opened and smelled my shampoo but I wonder if she just wanted to know what it smelled like). This happened to everyone, but the Dutch girl and a Mexican girl were both singled out for extra attention. She was told that due to Holland’s drug laws, she had to have extra searches and was taken off to the toilets where they made her strip, and even bend forward and open her buttocks for them to check for drugs! The poor thing was just shattered by the whole experience – especially as there was a drug sniffer dog there who hadn’t reacted to her at all!
So we were pretty happy that we hadn’t had to go through an experience like that.
Today we had a bit of a sleep in, then a wander about the city. It is quite cool, about 15 degrees and very smoggy so combined with our lack of sleep from the past few days we are not really feeling very touristy. Tomorrow is the last day then we head home – looking forward to seeing you all soon!
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