South America: Ep 01 - Arriving in Chile

I left my house at 11am and walked to the train station, this time I was getting the coach to London Victoria. The coach was early, so I put my luggage underneath and we departed on time. We would make the short journey to Leeds coach station for the driver to take a break as he had been driving all morning. Unfortunately there was a mechanical issue with the coach and we were going to be merged with the next coach at 2pm for the rest of the journey to London. This caused a 1 hour delay and would eat into my cushion of time I had later in the evening.

 

A National Express coach.

 

After arriving into London I quickly made my way to Heathrow Terminal 2 to drop off my luggage. I made it through security just as the boarding process had started so it was perfect timing really.

The airline I was flying to South America with is Avianca. It would be my first time using them and of course the first visit to the continent. The first leg of the flight was from Heathrow to Bogotá, Colombia and it took around 10.5 hours. I then had a 3 hour layover before the next flight to Santiago, Chile.

A layover in Bogotá, Colombia.

The next flight departed on time and as I was boarding I was asked if I wanted to be upgraded to economy plus. I of course said yes and this gave me some much needed leg room to be comfortable. I even managed to get a bit of sleep on the 5 hour flight. We were given a quick entry form to fill out on the plane to save time at passport control later.
I cleared immigration after a very long queue and found my transfer waiting exactly where the email said it would be. It was a short 25 minute drive from the airport to the hotel to check-in, where I was greeted by a friendly and helpful person at the reception desk.

Different colours shortly before landing in Santiago, Chile

I met the tour leader in the lobby at 6pm and we had a quick briefing about the tour ahead, before enjoying an included welcome dinner at 7pm. I spoke to a few others from the group before having an early night to catch up on lost sleep.

A video of this day can be found below: