With our hiking packs on our backs and our day packs on our fronts, we head to the airport at a leisurely 8am for an 11:35 am flight on our way to South America- Doug, Dave (and Dory's) next adventure!
An Uber and a short security line later, we were having breakfast air side by 9am but decided it was a bit soon for the coveted “airport beers” until at least Auckland.
After a quick trip out of the airport to Auckland’s nearest beach … (just kidding) we left Auckland, South America bound and slept as much as possible until we landed in Chile … late … with a 1 hr 20 min changeover.
Now the first thing you need to know about Santiago airport is
- No one speaks English;
- When they say the gates are close, they aren’t;
- Every corridor looks the same when you’re running;
- Locals are angry when you try to ask security to go first even if your connecting flight is already boarding.
So after a frantic 30 minutes of miscommunications, we make it to our gate only to find, not only is the gate not even open yet but the flight crew hasn’t even boarded yet. We quickly discover this is typical as everything here was on “South America time.”
Arriving in Rio is everything we (didn’t) hope for and more. The airport is full of people trying to sell you things or harass you into taxis. We narrowly avoid being ripped off by the first ATM but find a second and then use the airport WiFi to book an Uber, only for it to cancel on us once out at the pick up area. Once we see our Uber leave with someone else we head back in only to see surge pricing had tripled the price so we change to a taxi booked through a machine in English but with a driver that isn’t.
We arrive at our hotel in Copacabana just in time for a celebratory beer at the poolside bar before finally getting some rest at the end of a 30 hour “day”, ready for tomorrow when our Rio adventure begins!
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