Up and away
This is a long awaited trip. It began some years ago when, seeing an itinerary in our favourite Regent Seven Seas brochure, we both spotted “Easter Island” and it took no persuasion whatsoever to book ourselves on that cruise. If I add the date, February 2021, I probably don't need to explain why it didn't happen. We kept an eye on the annual updates, watching for those magical words to appear again which, eventually they did, in a similar itinerary for February 2025. It seemed a long way off…
But time flies, particularly in the last couple of weeks as we've prepared for our adventure. I've downloaded maps, made packing lists and we've both become more and more excited at the prospect of visitng some places we've only ever dreamed of seeing first hand.
It was this NASA image of Fakarava atoll that really brought it home to me last week. My word, what a privilege to go to such a remote part of the world as this!
Setting off from home on Friday lunchtime, then, we were both more excited than usual, feeling that this trip really had been a long time coming.
The dreary, grey weather of the last few weeks seemed to disappear the nearer we got to Heathrow too, putting us very much in holiday mode!
So it was two excited people who boarded that first flight to Madrid a couple of hours later. Though we didn't quite have the same fun labels on our luggage as last year's MAD-GIG, MAD-SCL would do, for sure.
Intentionally or not, I decided to stop looking at my watch and from the moment we stepped on board I couldn't say what time it was or how long any of this took. For we were in for the long haul and counting hours was not going to help in any way.
We had a couple of hours changeover in Madrid; time to catch our breath and stretch our legs before the main event, the IB0117 to Santiago, Chile. We chose to sit somewhere with a view of the departure board, but long before anything appeared there, my phone pinged.
We're quite impressed by Iberia's use of technology like this and gathered our things together and headed for gate S29.
But sometimes, efficiency comes at a cost and though we were all checked in and sent down the airbridge, some things were not quite ready.
So close but so far. 10.30pm on a Friday evening, standing on the airbridge waiting to board a plane isn't the best situation in which to observe human patience at its best. That we had such a clear view of the flight deck didn't help. Of course, eventually, the doors were opened and we took our seats.
Alan wasted no time in finding a cubby hole in which to make himself comfortable.
And we were off. As the crew served dinner, I listened to a bit of Sibelius on the headphones and tried not to think of what time it was or how much longer we had to go. I logged into the on board wifi and was delighted to get a WhatsApp message from Edward too.
Iberia's celebration of all things Velasquez that we encountered last year continues and this time, it was quite clear what we were expected to do with the small cruet on our dinner tray. (We did)
Just over thirteen hours later, we woke to find we were nearly there. Well, I think I'd woken a few times during the night because there was considerable turbulence, requiring the seat belt signs to be lit every ten or fifteen minutes across the Atlantic. I think that rather than keep making the announcement when everyone was trying to sleep, they just decided to leave them switched on for the duration. I wasn't the only one to be glad when Santiago was minutes away, I'm sure.
Our bags were already on the carousel as we reached the baggage hall, where there was a large sign just in case any of us had forgotten where we were.
Our transport was ready and waiting as a young man piled our luggage onto a trolley. We didn't say that our new suitcases (our Christmas present to/from each other!) are so easy to wheel along that we'd have been happy to manage them ourselves. Anyway, my green bag weighed a ton, so I was glad to leave him to deal with that!
Off we went, out into the warm sunshine, on our way to our overnight hotel in the city.
As we checked in, I couldn't help but admire the quipu on the wall behind the desk. I'm sorry for the reflections, but isn't it a great modern interpretation of such a traditional artefact? I loved this reminder that we're in South America and what's more,
there's another, smaller one in our room above the desk. I love it!
