Chile #1 - The Journey

Madrid Airport

Three flights today and two have been delayed.  Manchester to Heathrow ended up 35 minutes late which made for a pretty frantic connection.  The Madrid plane was on time but now I’m sat at Madrid airport facing a 1 hour delay.  At least I’m not feeling panicked for a connection this time but I just want to get on a plane and SLEEP!  A G&T (at Manchester) and a beer (at Madrid) has made me ready for zzzzz…..

Landing in Madrid and I felt incredibly emotional.  The difference of being in a place where you don’t speak the language.  I really did feel very alone in that moment.  I suspect I’ll feel something similar on landing in Santiago.

I had to pick up a boarding pass here which involved someone at the information desk calling someone from LAN airlines to bring it up to me.  The lovely assistant is here at the gate too and made sure I knew what was going on with the delay.

There’s an announcement and movement.  Looks like the problem has been fixed sooner than I expected…

Thoughts In The Air
We’ve been flying away from the dawn but it’s gradually catching us up.  If I look backwards from the window I can just see the sky starting to tinge with orange.  13 hours of night and only intermittent light sleep.  When you’re sat in economy for this long you realise why people pay thousands extra for business…

I watched Moonlight on the flight.  A bit disappointing.  It’s very dialogue driven which is not ideal with the background hum of an aircraft.  But nothing seemed to happen!  I also watched Fantastic Beasts And How To Find Them (mostly from Heathrow to Madrid) which was much more enjoyable.

The Andes are very beautiful to fly over, especially just as the dawn is breaking.  White with snow like peaks of newly sifted icing sugar.  There’s a perfect line of pink and an almost full moon in the sky.  Although we left an hour late we appear to have made up the time and will land a few minutes early.  Once over the mountains we will start our descent and I will start to get nervous.  I think I’ve worked out how to get to hotel #1.  And I hope my luggage made it through the changes with me. How I get into Santiago from there I’m not 100% sure…