Our Problems Begin

Thursday 1 February

I can’t believe it’s February already – our time is now whizzing away, and this time had seen so far off when we left home in July.

Colin was feeling much better this morning, after a good night’s sleep – not completely recovered, but enough to try and eat a little at breakfast. At least his fluctuating temperature had stopped and his head wasn’t pounding. The restaurant here was divided into open air and undercover sections and sitting out in the warm air to eat our breakfast, visited by sparrows and finches seeking out any stray crumbs, was very peaceful. The sea crashed in over the rocks just a few metres away, and gulls screamed overhead occasionally. Today was overcast – a steel grey sky reaching right down to the water – but it was still warm. Arica is supposed to only have 0.4 mm rain per year – we were hoping we weren’t going to be here on the odd occasion that it rained. By the time we had finished breakfast though, the sun was breaking through. We spent the next hour or so catching up on emails to friends and people we had met on our tours, before sitting round the pool and relaxing.

We had a late lunch – more of those large baps – chicken and beef this time - before collecting our luggage from the store. Although only about 15.45 our cab driver was waiting, and we were hustled into his car and whizzed to the airport about half an hour’s drive away. Our plane was due out at 18.20 – or so we thought – that is where our troubles began!

The airport is situated on a desolate stretch of desert, alongside the ocean, with nothing around it but flat sand. It is a long low building, with arrivals and booking in on the ground floor and departures on the first. As we entered, it was empty, with the exception of one other passenger waiting with his bags. There was no sign of any staff around at all, except a couple of cleaners – another airport that only opens when flights are expected. We checked the departure list – and no plane to Calama! – and no plane at 18.20!. The next plane was due out at 18.50 and going to Sanitago. This caused us a bit of a panic, but there was nothing we could do until the staff arrived – about forty five minutes later. There was another passenger waiting by then, so the four of us queued up. The young lady explained to us that all the schedules for Lan Chile flights had been changed and on looking on her computer, said that they hadn’t been able to get hold of either us or Journey Latin America to inform us of the alterations – what rubbish – they wouldn’t have been able to get hold us of course, but Journey Latin America is an international company with offices both in Santiago and London. They could have left a message.

But the young lady was very helpful and explained that she could change us to the Sanitiago flight, put us up overnight in a hotel there and fly us to Calama tomorrow morning, all at Lan Chile expense. This would include transfers to and from the hotel – our flight in the morning would be the first plane out of Santiago at 06.40. As there was no other option, we had to reluctantly agree – this would mean we missed our morning activity programme in San Pedro – but at least we would arrive there before lunch. She took our itinerary to check our other flights booked with Lan Chile over the next couple of weeks and said she would return everything with our boarding passes, once any further alterations had been made – with over an hour to go, we thought, “fine”.

When the flight was called to board – about ten minutes late – we still had no boarding passes or our paperwork returned, so Colin went off in search of our lady – only to find that Chileans – at least at Arica airport – all arrive to book in at the last moment, and the departure hall was full to overflowing. He eventually managed to retrieve all our paperwork and collected some new tickets for each of our other flights (three) – all of which had been changed! One change now meant that we would spend nearly seven hours in Santiago airport – not a pleasant prospect. We boarded the flight, which would make one short stop at Iqueque on the way, and were rewarded with a half sandwich of ham, tomato and green beans and a glass of wine! – purely medicinal - to relieve the stress.

We arrived at Santiago, around 22.10 and collected our luggage – ours were the last two suitcases off the plane - serves us right for getting to Arica so early. We looked around for our names on the transfer boards, but we weren’t mentioned. We couldn’t take a taxi as we didn’t know which hotel we would be staying in. Colin went off to find the Lan Chile offices, on the second floor, and was sent to a couple of other desks, before being helped by yet another kind young lady from Lan Chile. She explained that she knew nothing of the arrangements, but would make further enquiries with her supervisor. Colin returned to wait with me, for the next hour or so – the young lady returning a couple of times to inform us she was still trying to sort it out. Eventually, about 23.20 she arrived with lots of sets of papers and we followed her to the taxi office, where she arranged the transfers to and from the Radisson hotel. We would be collected at 04.20 tomorrow morning! – we weren’t going to get a lot of sleep. She took us to the taxi stand, where a line of minibuses were waiting to collect passengers as they emerged from the airport. We were seated in one such bus, and waited – another man and another lady eventually arrived and their luggage was stowed on top of ours so that the luggage compartment was full – great now we would be on our way. Wrong, there was still just space for two more people inside – and a huge man and a lady on crutches arrived about ten minutes later – the luggage in the boot was all unpacked and reloaded to incorporate most of it – the rest was put inside with the now six squashed passengers. But after another five minutes, where the driver chatted and ensured he couldn’t get any more on board, we were on our way to the Radisson – a journey we had been assured would only take fifteen minutes. It was now about 23.35. First we dropped of three of the passengers at a hotel on the airport perimeter. Fine. Next we dropped off a lady who had jumped in the front with the driver, at her home, somewhere on the outskirts of Santiago. OK. Then there were three. The other gentleman, who had been chatting to us in halting English (we really should have learnt some Spanish before embarking on our trip), started directing the taxi driver to his hotel – only he didn’t quite recognize where we were, so we drove round and round – we had no idea where we were either, except that the area seemed quite industrial – no sign of the city centre. We went up and down some roads a few times, before the man decided he knew how to walk to his hotel from where we were – in the middle of a multi-layered flyover! He got out, and we still took another fifteen minutes to reach the Radisson! We had decided by this point the taxi driver didn’t like the English – a lot of people in Chile don’t like us apparently – and we gave up worrying that our sleeping time was ticking away fast.