Peruvian Mountains outside Santiago!
Day 249
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MELBOURNE CUP DAY!!! Who won? I remember last year, celebrating with mum, and our silly hats!!! Both of us invalids..mum with her ´knee´and me with my ánklé´!!! What a wonderful day it was too................aw, the memories....
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Santiago, Chile, South America
We´re here in Chile!
What a flight...the quintisential midnight horror for sure!
We got to Miami airport really early, four hours earlier in fact..
We had to hand back our car..which we did at the first Miami hotel we stayed at, The Ramada, then we caught a shuttle from the hotel..
So we waited to be checked in, 2 hours before, like they said..after having lunch (a healthy one, now that Greg has been told to watch his blood pressure and lose some weight and reduce salt and fat intake!) we checked in.
And the check in guy told us we couldn´t get seats together. So annoying! On a long flight like that..an overnight one..you really want to be together and not with a bunch of strangers.
My blood pressure was rising i tell ya!
Anyway, they booked us for 11 E and 12 E. Two isle seats and the guy said we could swap with someone at boarding..or once we find our seats.
Only everyone else had the same idea! It seemed to me..no one had seats together..there was a bit of a raucous with people wanting to change seats and getting upset! So in the end, i said to Greg, isle seats are fine, at least we get room to move about and don´t have to annoy people when we´re up and down...which i always am because basically i can´t stay still on a plane and i´m always thinking of DVT (Remember Michele´s sister died from DVT after a plane flight and she was only 52!).
When we got on the plane...we found our seats. And they were in the middle isle..and in the middle of two other people! So i got crammed in the middle of these two Chilean guys (One turned out to be really friendy and told me all about Chile!!!) and Greg got crammed in between this woman and this rather large guy...
So that was a fun flight!
I bought a neck pillow so Greg and i had one each...and this one was a solid one instead of a blow up one...and thought i´d be able to sleep better that way..which i did...so that was ok.
We arrived at 10.30am. An hour late, due to weather and after going through customs (I got dried apricots confiscated..naughty me, i forgot i had them in my hand luggage!) we finally got to our hotel at midday!
But the wonderful thing was....driving out of the Santiago Airport...and seeing the Peruvian Andes JUST THERE!!!! Amazing.....
IT´s very civilised here too....at least in this FOUR STAR hotel it is!!! (All we could get..and in Lima , we don´t have a hotel..it´s all booked! So we might be starting our ¨camping´early!!!!
We´re coming back to Chile after we´ve completed our trek..and i can see it will be beautiful because the country is spread down the coast line of South America..and even just the glimse we´ve seen so far..looks quite spectacular! At least in the distance it does...
Close up..here at the hotel..it´s pretty desserted! And barren. But that´s because we´re out in the sticks here and not on the coast!
It´s almost 9pm now..and we´ve had a good sleep and a good lunch (grilled fish and salad!!) and Greg´s still asleep!!!
I wonder what that tablet was the doctor gave him! I think it must have been a sleeping tablet to help him relax as he told he he hates flying!! I always knew he got stressed about flying..but when i asked why..he said all he hears are the engines roaring and he can detect all the sounds..
No wonder he was stressed for the last day!
I´m so oblivious to all that..and just cruise along, expecting everything to turn out..and i think he takes on the responsibility of the world!
So..it´s good that he´s still asleep! And probably will be until morning..when we fly out again!!!!
We then meet up with our trekking group! Can´t wait!
Hiking the Inca Trail will be something else...
But i´m still worried about my shoes...and needing proper trekking boots (greg wears these sort all the time!) Because i wear orthodics..i couldn´t get any hiking boots that were high enough at the back and they kept slipping..and well...i just have my ´comfort´ shoes..
I´ve been wearing these for 8 months with everything else we´ve done..and did the cinque terre in them..so they´ll have to do!!!!!!
I guess we´ll just WAIT AND SEE!
At least we´ll get to use the sleeping bag and towel and sheets i´ve been lugging around in my pack for the last eight months!!!
xx
NB We posted up a heap of pics of us in some of the other more recent blogs...
