Santiago (Airport)

---

Day 114: The longest day ever continues...

The first leg of the journey from Auckland to Santiago proved to be uneventful. Leaving soon after five, I was quite excited for the first hour when noone sat down next to me and I spread myself out a bit taking up two seats next to the window. As soon as I had made myself at home, someone arrived to take the space next to me because the video screen in his seat didn't work. Shortly after this, mine stopped working too and so I spent the rest of the journey with just the one seat and no entertainment. I did manage to get a veggie dinner and breakfast though, so it wasn't all bad.

Despite having a period of darkness (albeit not a very long period), I didn't actually manage to get any sleep on the flight, and so when we arrived at Santiago at lunchtime (whatever time that was), I was feeling rather tired. I wandered round the shops for a little while before settling down for a nap before my next flight. With nearly five hours to kill, I thought I'd probably be quite bored at the airport, but it turned out that instead, I was just rather tired, and managed to fall into such a deep sleep that no announcements or movement woke me up for five hours.

Thinking I hadn't been asleep that long, I went to the bathrooms and then made my way towards the gate that had now appeared on the departures board. On my way to said gate, I happened to notice the time. There was five minutes until the plane was due to take off. Running the last few metres to the gate didn't help me and as I presented my boarding pass to the stewards they both shook their heads. The plane and my bags had gone without me. Rubbish. On the bright side, at least I was well rested.

After an initial panic, I went to the airline helpdesk, and without too much hassle managed to get on the next flight two and a half hours later. They even gave me the gate number in advance and so having bought an extra large coffee, I went and sat right next to it and camped out there until it was time for boarding.

Of course the second plane was delayed, and there was a bit of waiting around while they sorted out 'an electrical fault', before we were all allowed on board. Having finally taken off, I felt like I was being punished for my tardiness by being consistently annoyed by the man in his forties next to me who played Supermario on full volume throughout the flight. At least I was on a flight, albeit slightly apprehensive about whether or not I'd ever see my backpack again now that it had gone off to foreign parts without me.

Having not eaten much more than a giant bag of M&Ms since breakfast, I was looking forward to some sustenance, but it turns out that missing your flight does nothing for increasing your food options. The South American airline didn't have any veggie food on board per se, but presented me with a ham and cheese sandwich and told me I could take the ham out! I didn't really feel like starting a debate, and seeming to be the only gringo on board, and with vegetarianism not so big in these parts, I didn't argue, (and no, I didn't eat the sandwich either). Fortunately the flight was only an hour and a half. Any longer than that and I think that the combined lack of food and manboy next to me may have driven me insane, but before long we were touching down in Buenos Aires.

---

Comments

[jenny]

from one veggie to another - i would have eaten that bad boy ham or no ham