Time to go. Up at 5am, shower, breakfast, last minute things to pack, then off to the airport. The nice lady at check-in, noting I had a 60 min connection in Sydney, re-booked me on an earlier flight to Sydney, so I had a little extra time to transit to international. Smooth sailing through the Borderforce express lane, and made it to the gate in plenty of time. On the Flight to Auckland I spend some time watching The Man Who Knew Infinity – a biographical drama of the life of the mathematician Ramachandran and his Oxford mentor Hardy. If you haven’t read i
t, I recommend it (I may be a bit biassed because of my math’s background, but overall I think they did well).
Auckland airport… 3h to kill. Time to relax according to the departure boards. Endless miles of foyers to walk to get to the transit area and back to the departure lounges areas. I noted a few odd things in the shops – for example for a mere $300 I could get 7 bottles of colostrum tablets. And there was an amazing, huge industrial robot – the sort of size you might associate with car manufacture, dedicated to getting small drawers containing people’s duty free purchases to them. Seemed rather like a sledgehammer to crack a walnut to me.
11-odd hours of flying got us to Santiago (managed ~2 h fitful sleep). Spectacular views of the Andes as we descended. Santiago is hemmed in with mountains. It traps the air with inversions. The smog layer for which Santiago is famous were visible clearly, and today was apparently a clear day. The locals tell me that Pinochet wanted to blast through the mountains to the east, to let the smog out over Argentina, though I cannot say if this is an apocryphal story.
Santiago with the Andes in the background.
At the airport my bag was off quickly and there were no queues or delays so I got out in record time. The ‘free wifi’ that I had been promised turned out to be sllllooooowwwwww. It took about 5 minutes to send a text email saying I had arrived… While that happened I was accosted by “do you want a taxi” people. Then some people with Santiago airport information badges round their necks. They offered to call the number I had for Trish. It’s the housekeeper they said… the voice insisted the car had broken down so I should take a taxi. Was I suspicious? Yes I was. I thanked them for their “assistance” and waited. 5 minutes later there was Todd to pick me up. Yay, another scam averted.
We’re now settled in at Todd and Trish’s and I am about to hit the sack. Buenos Nochias.
Gallery: https://goo.gl/photos/xmymjctyvYV2d3fD9 (just a few pics… not a lot of chance for photography yet).