The day finally arrives!

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After what seems in some ways to have been years and in others, no time at all, waiting for the day to come, Tuesday 14th April 2009 finally arrived and we are on our way to Manchester airport with bellies full of our last supper (pepporoni pizza of course). Flight one of three is to London, and it seems no sooner have we taken off we are landing at Heathrow. Long stopover infinitely improved by Phil's suggestion of "Pint?", accomponied by the first of many crosswords that will accompany our journey (who needs PSP eh Phil!). Next flight to Madrid, another stale sandwhich and the lack of in flight entertainment is apeased by the warm buzz from the ol' pint of Stella which keeps my merry until at least mid way through France. Takeoff delayed slightly - arouses fear that our bags might get lost somewhere in the next change over of flights - the big one to Santiago. Surely not though, they do this all the time........

Plane to Santiago turns out not to be the luxurious customer focused model we'd geekily read up about on LAN's website, with individual TVs and teh like. Instead we are greeted by a throwback to those huge planes with beige seats, beige walls and beige carpets that look like the 80's threw up on it. One TV plays dubbed Spanish Katherine Hepburn movies and some shite with Keira Knightly in which restarts 7 times! So 13 and a half hours of blissful cruising it ain't!

But our first views of the snow capped Andes at sunrise as we crossed in to Chile made it all worthwile.

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Photos

Andes
Our view from the plane