On the Road to Sydney 10th - 16th Oct (via Bogota, Houston, LA and Auckland)

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Our route to Sydney was to take us through 5 countries and take 6 days including with 2 visiting stops. This was partly because Star Alliance has pretty poor South American coverage and no routes from South America to Australasia. This meant our round the world ticket forced us to fly back via the USA to reach Down under.

The first day of our journey started in Quito, Ecuador where we spent a leisurely sunny Sunday morning walking through the streets. The main Amazonas street was closed off to traffic, so instead the usually hectic road was full of cyclists, joggers, inline skaters and pedestrians. We went to the Indigenous Market at the end of Amazonas and had a good look around the stalls that were selling very similar wares to those in the market at Otovalo (see the Quito blog).

Around one o'clock we headed back to the hotel to gather all our things together and catch a taxi to the wonderful Quito airport that lies in the northern part of the City. We had an Aerogal flight back to Bogotá, Colombia, the same airline that we had used to fly to the Galapagos (see the Galapagos blog). The check-in was straight forward and the aircraft departure was bang on time. It was a rather old Boeing 737 aircraft, but it and the service in economy was fine.

We arrived into Bogotá a little after sunset. Unlike our arrival into Colombia almost 2 months before, there was very little delay at immigration and we collected our bags and were in a taxi less than an hour after touching down. This was only an over night stop and so we had booked a hotel about a 10 minute drive from the airport. We had an early start the next morning.

The Hotel Estellar de la Feria is a new hotel in a fairly business/industrial part of Bogotá, was a large US base of some sort a few minutes down the road. Its therefore not the kind of place to choose if you want to see Bogotá. But for our brief nightstop it was ideal, although there was very little choice for eating nearby and we ended up having roast chicken in a Colombian fast food-type restaurant. It was all we needed – but nothing to rave about.

The next morning started with a wake-up call at 4:30am and at 5:00am we fell bleary eyed into a taxi to the airport to check-in for our 7am Continental Airlines flight to Houston and the resumption of our round-the-world flights.

Ten minutes later we entered El Dorado (the name for Bogotá airport) and Continental mayhem. We went to the Continental business class check-in and when asked told them we arrived yesterday (which was clear from our immigration stamps). We were told we had to go to 'Desk 19' to get a Tax exemption voucher. This is actually an office of the Colombian government which determines whether you can avoid departure tax (if you have been in the country for less than 20 hours). We explained, in Spanish, that we'd arrived yesterday and that Continental had sent us over. We were told by the supervisor, in English, that we didn't need such a voucher and fearing a misunderstanding, I asked whether she would mind telling Continental that, since they clearly didn't realise that. She politely declined my request and we dragged our heavy rucksacks back through the crowds to Continental's business class check-in.

My fears of a misunderstanding were confirmed when we repeated what 'Desk 19' had said and they then asked had we got our previous days boarding passes. We didn't, but we did have the e-tickets from Avianca and the stamps in the passport – surely that was proof enough wasn't it ? Apparently not. We were told that we had to go to the Avianca ticket office and try and get copies of yesterday's boarding passes – something I was pretty sure wouldn't be forthcoming.

At this point we were starting to bubble over with this early morning nonsense. We took one of the check-in guys from Continental with us and queued up for around 10 minutes, during which time he did apologise to us for the inconvenience before talking in Spanish to the Avianca girl. We stood in the background and after a few minutes of discussions, someone else from Continental came over, talked to the guy who then disappeared back to the check-in desks. Predictably with still had no Avianca boarding pass copies.

We dragged our luggage back to our business class check-in point and encountered someone else, who tried to take us back to square one, telling us we had to go to 'Desk 19' and after we said we had already been, that we had to go to the Avianca desk.

This was just too much to handle at 6am in the morning and any cool I still had was lost as I asked to speak to the supervisor. She too tried to tell us the same thing and I asked why a ticket and passport stamp, which together clearly showed we had been in the country for less than 20 hours, was not enough. Seemingly she had no answer and said we had to go to Avianca. We repeated yet again that we had been there with her Continental colleague and she should ask him. Finally after talking with him, she relented and let us through. The whole nonsense had taken around 40 minutes. Is El Dorado airport a place for Continental Cowboys ? – we certainly got that impression.

The four hour flight back to Houston was in a similarly cramped Continental Airlines' Boeing 737 that we arrived on, with very little in the way of in-flight entertainment that worked. The breakfast service was OK, but so far we certainly had not enjoyed 'Star treatment', as every Continental airlines aircraft promises you as you board (a pun on the Star Alliance membership).

It didn't get any better when we arrived at Houston, where we were refused access to Continental's business class lounge, because people flying within the US have no provision for lounge access. It didn't matter that we were actually transiting from an international flight. Any customer-oriented airline would have made an exception, especially when they heard our Bogotá woes, but for Continental, rules is rules.

When we boarded the Boeing 737 aircraft to head to Los Angeles, we realised that this aircraft had nothing in the way of inflight entertainment and all we received during the 3.5 hour flight was a cold plate.

We never expected too much from an American airline, having received appalling service on an American Airlines flight from Quito to Miami a few years back. But at the start of our trip I was hopeful Continental airlines would be better. It wasn't. I wrote an email to Continental Airlines about the above issues and others that we'd experienced with them on earlier flights and to their credit they did reply and said they would pass on our feedback to 'senior management' and gave each of us 5,000 air miles.

When we arrived in LA we picked up a car and we went to a Staples store on Santa Monica Boulevard to get a replacement Garmin windscreen Satnav holder, after I left the original one in a car in Tampa. The web said they had them so I was confident. But on arrival I was told nope they don't and by the way they are banned under California law. Nonetheless, the helpful guy did advise us that they had a generic holder that we could try. It was cheap but really bulky and during our 30 minute journey to our hotel the GPS fell out twice. This was partly operator error, but nevertheless I decided to go online and order a Garmin one for delivery in Sydney when we arrived there.

The Indian-run hotel in the Rosemead district of LA was the cheap and cheerful option, with a view to being reasonably close to Universal Studios for a day out at an amusement Park if we felt up to it. However, after travelling all day and with the Motel being a little noisy, we didn't sleep too well. So with a further long travelling night ahead of us, we decided to just take it easy and after a trip to a Mall in the afternoon, we slowly made our way back to LAX for our flight to New Zealand.

We were flying with Air New Zealand on the overnight flight to Auckland. The contrast in service between Continental Airlines and this airline was phenomenal. The Check-in was friendly and easy and the lounge was fantastic. The lounge food and drink was high quality and plentiful and after we had been there a little while, the Chief purser and another senior cabin crew member, entered the lounge an hour before boarding & went to talk with passengers. This is something I have never seen on any airline before, but it was an excellent touch. Even British Airways Concorde passengers never got that sort of treatment. But it was very much appreciated and it built us up for a really special flight.

We were not disappointed. Air New Zealand has no First Class on its flights from LA to Auckland and so the Business Class is treated as First Class. There are only single window seats and these are angled inwards at 45 degrees and convert to very comfortable lie flat beds. The service is very personalised with the flight attendants referring to you by name and coming to make your beds up for you when you are ready to go to sleep. Just like in the lounge, the food quality was excellent and we both managed to get a good sleep during the 12 hour flight. There really was absolutely nothing we could find fault with on this flight.

Air New Zealand is an airline we'd definitely fly with again. In fact we were going to anyway when we left New Zealand to head to Sydney. But first we had a 2 day layover in Auckland. We already had lost a day by crossing the International dateline, so we left LA on a Tuesday and arrived in Auckland on a Thursday – which if nothing else saved us a day's budget !

We picked up a car on arrival in Auckland and drove to another Indian-run Motel that we had booked in Epsom,a suburb of Auckland city. Once again our trusty GPS lady, Deirdre, guided us there. It was similar to the place we had had in LA although a little more basic and smaller. But it was fine for two nights.

We had another reason to stop over in Auckland and that was to hopefully hook up with NZ friends we had known from Zurich, who had moved back. We called Matt and Sarah and arranged to meet up at their place that evening. During the day we explored Epsom and nearby Newmarket, two names that in England are famous for their horse racing courses. These two towns had no such equestrian links and seemed like pretty normal suburbs, with plenty of shops. In the afternoon, the flight and time zone differences caught up with us and we had a little rest before heading out.

We met up with Matt and Sarah and had a great evening. Little did we know at the time but they were getting married a little over a week. Matt was getting ready for a Stag weekend in 2 days time and really it was all go for them. Matt suggested they have Fish and Chips from the local chippy and being a Northern Englander having been brought up on such fare, this was music to my ears. We don't have real fish and chips in Switzerland and South America had good fish, but bad chips. So this was a treat. It was also a treat to be with Matt and Sarah and their young son in a house that has a great house over looking the ocean – although they insisted they were only house-sitting the place.

The next day we set out to explore New Zealand's North Island. There certainly is some beautifully green scenery and coastal views to enjoy, but we got the impression that not a lot was happening in the villages. One major tourist (and possibly local) attraction was "Sheep World“. There are at least 10 sheep for every human living in New Zealand and so Sheep are a pretty major source of income. Sheep World allowed you to find out more about this topic and attend a sheepdog trial, where a dog would herd a few sheep into a pen. But at 24 New Zealand dollars per person entry fee, we decided the lure was not great enough and we saved the money for a few beers and an evening meal with byo (bring your own) wine.

In general we were a little surprised with the high cost of New Zealand. Everyone says how expensive Switzerland is and it certainly is for the visitor, but at times we thought NZ prices were similar to those of Switzerland.

We had a lunch-time flight to Sydney the next day and so at 10am we returned the car to the airport and headed for the check-in. It was clear that our experiences with Air New Zealand in LAX were not a one-off and the check-in was straight forward and the lounge also excellent – including scones, strawberry jam and whipped cream.

The three and a half hour flight wasn't quite as luxurious as the one we experienced from LAX, but it was very comfortable and even a very windy Sydney with a bit of a bouncy landing didn't dull our pleasure of flying with Air New Zealand again.

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Comments

[anonymous]

so interesting
What an adventure - could almost be there. thanks