Up at the crack of sparrow fart, it’s the first day all holiday we’ve woken to a dark sky. We’re in port already and our breakfast view is over the seeming new port of San Antonio. We later learn that it has taken over from Valparaiso because the dockers union there was trying to hold the shipping lines to ransom.
Intriguingly, although we are moored the ship is still rocking, no idea why, presumably it’s tide related as we’re quite close to open sea in this smallish port.
After waiting by the pool for a while we decided it was time to leave, and sadly decended to deck four and off the ship, with the cruise director, restaurant manager and hotel director all saying goodbye to their guests as we left.
There was a short bus ride to the terminal which was so close we could have walked, but I imagine it’s too dangerous to do this as there’s no separation between cargo and passengers. We collected our luggage, cleared “fruit control” - Chile is not allowing any foreign foodstuffs into their country. Having cleared immigration a week earlier we were then able to walk out and find our driver.
We got a break-neck drive to Santiago, not really very relaxing, occasionally stomach-churning, and arrived at the airport very early.
It’s chaos at the checkin, but fortunately not in the red SkyPriority lane, so we’re soon rid of our bags, through immigration and security and looking for the tradition office gifts for our return. 90% of everything on sale is international, there’s no point buying Mars, Toblerone or Lindt, but we find some interesting looking biscuits and cake, only later did we see the “Product of Spain” labelling - at least the language is the right one!
There is ages to wait in the lounge and it’s quite busy but the food is good, the Internet is blisteringly fast, and we’re no longer sitting behind a mad driver!
A few other passengers are here, including a pair of our chronies so the conversation is all about our amazing shared experience.
We were called to the gate quite early, walked straight on and then sat for an hour before setting off, which was fine because we got halfway through Murder on the Orient Express even before we’d hit the tarmac.
Eventually setting off, one exciting curiosity about Santiago airport is that the East-bound planes can’t head off in that direction, because the Andes are right in the way. Instead we have to fly West into the Pacific to gain altitude whilst turning round after a short while by which time we’re high enough to cross the mountain range. We’ve twice done this on 747s and they head a long way out, today our 777 didn’t have to go as far but the principle is the same.
During this extended scramble for altitude the turbulence can be quite bad. So there’s no service for 45 - 60 minutes, indeed I remember the first tine in 2002 when the turbulence was so bad crockery flew across the cabin, but today was nothing like that. It’s a measure of the size of South America that five hours after we took off we eventually cross the coastline into the Atlantic.
Sunday AM update:
I really shouldn’t have written the above paragraph, for the majority of the flight the turbulence, whilst not excessive, didn’t let up at all. It was the bumpiest flight ever as well as one of the longest at 13.5 hours!
Having arrived into Paris early we are now stuck on the apron because our stand is still occupied! I wonder how long they have had to get this sorted, and done nothing?
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