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:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Location: Amsterdam

Image
Amsterdam is a city that I visited several times now, with my first visit been in August 2014. The most recent time was Summer 2016 on the Expat Explore Northern Explorer tour as this was the start and end point. Amsterdam is also a very common connecting hub for international flights into Europe at Schiphol Airport just 10km away from central Amsterdam. Amsterdam is most famous for its bicycles and canals. So on the first evening of our tour we took a cruise around the canals of Amsterdam. As we got to know our group we had the chance to have a pizza and some ice cream on board. Another top sight is the I Amsterdam sign. This is a great spot for tourists to get their group shots. The building just behind that is the Rijksmuseum(Shown below). This has arts and history of the city of Amsterdam and costs €17.50 at the time of writing. I have never been in and have only walked under the archway to get to the canals. Other places of interest in Amsterdam are: Van Gogh Museum...
Read more

Location: Germany

Image
I have been to several cities in Germany, I decided to put them together in 1 blog. Berlin I visited Berlin as part of an Expat Explore's Northern Explorer tour in August 2016. We drove in from Poland on the coach and spent roughly 36 hours here spending 2 nights in the hotel. On the first evening we had a quick visit to Checkpoint Charlie and then onto a meal at a local restaurant which was included. Checkpoint Charlie is the name given to the border crossing between East and West Berlin during the cold war. The following day was a full free day to ourselves. Some of the main activities to see are: The Berlin Wall(Free) remains all over the city and some parts remain in good condition with original graffiti to view. Brandenburg Gate(Free) Reichstag Building(Free with advance booking) is where the German parliament is. Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe(Free) Brandenburg Gate. My video from my video in Berlin can be found below: Munich I visited Mun...
Read more

Asia 2017 - Day 16: Leaving Asia

Image
Raining once again as I left Tokyo transferring to the airport. I had used transfers in all 3 different countries to and from the airport, all of them were on time with no issues. Tokyo Airport I used my last few Yen coins trying some limited edition Japanese mint flavoured kit-kat which were very nice. I would be flying with Aeroflot for both of the flights back to London. Soon after we boarded we were informed that the in-flight entertainment system was broken, which was not ideal for a 10 hour flight. We were offered several drink refills, 2 meals and a yoghurt/ice-cream throughout the flight tho which was nice. Aeroflot plane Moscow Airport I had a 3 hour connection here, so I grabbed a few croissants and tried to grab some rest in the corner somewhere. The next onward flight to London would be 4 hours but it was OK as I had enough leg room on this flight. Heathrow Airport I arrived into London and cleared border control around 21:30pm. I would be staying overn...
Read more