(Sydney-Auckland-Santiago, Chile)
I’ve just escaped the Mothers’ Day crowds (and dire warnings of bag rippers/pickpockets), and trumpets and drums and blokes prancing about ethnically waving white handkerchiefs Morris-dancing-style, in the pedestrian plazas of Santiago. With an hour to kill before the airport transfer arrives, here goes travelogue numero uno.
You know you are in the correct queue for the LAN Chile flight from Sydney to Auckland and Chile by the large numbers of plaited and bunned women with kids. Those with all-over-the-place-kids-with-excitement are getting off in Auckland. Those with kids holding tightly to Mama’s dress with saucer eyes are going “Just to Chile” as the Qantas clerk so blithely put it. Well dressed Americans are in the wrong queue because they cannot read. Fortunately, a very patient LAN man convinced them to join their loud fellow travellers on the far side of the counter.
The queue in through the “crematorium doors” to Customs was a horrendous 400 metres long. I was greeted by “Fiona Smith” at the counter with: “You used to teach at Penshurst but you didn’t have me” and a somewhat strange conversation about a school reunion in June. I got a window seat.
“Viva Uruguay” graffiti were in the toilet near the boarding gate, and a lot of announcements were in Spanish, so I knew I was more or less in the right place.
Aside from a very ordinary hot cheese sandwich lunch, LAN is pretty good. We’re in the world of back-of-the-seat video of 4 movies and 5 TV shows I didn’t want to watch in several languages, 5 CDs and some very acceptable classical music tracks. Just as well, as the large and taciturn woman crammed into the seat next to me tossed, turned, spammed and drooled and snored for most of the flight, so things to do when I couldn’t sleep became quite compelling over the next 17 hours. The half-inch-Thick-Duty-Free booklet offered wondrous treats, all of which I could refuse, particularly “Flight Attendant Barbie”. It was with some pleasure that I watched “Mtes. Blue” disappear from the bottom of the map as we neared the Land of the Long Brownish Crowd and landed in Auckland.
A quick phone call to certain antique-dealing friends, and some time avoiding retail opportunities (“Free Pack of BUTTER with Every Sale Over $20), and getting immersed in a Peter Corris novel passed the time before the “real” journey began.
It’s quite something to fly east out of New Zealand at Sunset, with the silhouette of Mt Egmont pointing into a dark red sunset as Hamilton, Rotorua and Gisborne slid under the wing, and we headed out to sea… If the map as right, this is the closest to Antarctica that I will ever reach.
Ms Twitchy stopped all hope of sleep.
I did enjoy the conversation of the two women behind me as I was getting into Ms Julie’s South America guide book. One was a retired Qantas flight attendant now into her second career. She reminded me of a current upper-left-brain member of my school staff both in manner and voice. Her companion was a Chilean ballet dancer returning home to family. She was giving good travel tips. I took notes.
The first sight of New Zealand from an arriving plane is usually a line of white cloud sweeping across the horizon that gradually reveals beaches and cliffs sweeping south from Auckland to new Plymouth. The initial sight of South America seemed similar, but more striking, as the white cloud gradually became the awesome sight of the snow-capped Andes, stretching in a stark dawn-brown shadowed line south as far as the eye can see. Gradually steep valleys revealed themselves as the plane descended to the mountain cleft that was dark brown with smog, with occasional smaller peaks appearing above it. One long swoop over an extensive rubbish dump and it’s welcome to unlovely Santiago.
I won’t bore you with the usual comedy routine which is the transfer from airport to city for a first timer in a foreign country. I will warn you that if you are Canadian, Australian Mexican or American, you are directed to a “lepers’ line” to pay a very special entry tax to punish our (shared) governments for “toeing” the US line on South American visas following 9/11. THANKS John Howard NOT!
I’m out of time and have a flight to catch. I typed a lot more in Santiago but the computer crashed twice meaning fevered retypings.
I’m (temporarily) over it.
I do hope the small crowd of people standing behind me, reading this and practising their English have enjoyed this email.