Yes, we’re going first class on one of BAs longest routes - how fun is this? Pretty fun! We were sure the flight was going to be canceled due to a planned catering strike which was postponed yesterday - yay!
We finally boarded, a bit late, and had very nice seats. The only slight negative is that the aircraft is old and a bit worn. The crew seemed very nice and attentive. First class was totally full, so our old seats didn’t appear to be broken. Not sure why they moved us over.
They started up the engines, and then they didn’t start. They called the engineer and tried again, it didn’t work. We were sure that this was it and our trip wouldn’t happen. Third time was the charm and they got the engines started, before they had to scrub the flight due to crew shift issues.
We tried to stay awake during dinner, because, heck, we hadn’t eaten for a whole 2 hours. We tried to have dinner together, but the space was just too small, so Chris went back to his seat. I had all vegetarian options: squash, cheese, and I cant remember what else. A glass of the pink champagne and hot tea.
I fell asleep between the main and the cheese and then was SO stuffed I actually felt a bit ill and very bloated and uncomfortable.
I watched several movies: Sunset Blvd and Sex in the City, and then fell asleep for most of the flight. I had tea for breakfast, but no food as was still recovering from dinner, and ate at Chris’ place. He had the full English which looked good.
It was a smooth flight, not too much turbulence, and the mountains were beautiful in the morning.
BA deboard by row numbers, so we were able to take our time and walk the length of the full airport to the covid testing area. They parked the aircraft at the extreme end of the airport, so we must have walked about a mile.
We were at the front of the line and finally were assigned to a desk to review our documentation which included: preflight Covid test, Chilean covid pass, other Chilean pass, travel insurance, and passport. What we didn’t realize is that the Chilean pass had a time limit on it and ours was expired. Luckily we were able to fill out another one online and got that approved by the desk agent. This is probably what the problem was when we tried to check in at BA In London. The desk agents were very patient with our lack of Spanish and our expired pass. They had been working a 24 hour shift and were very tired.
From here it was over to stand in line for our PCR tests. We were given to understand we would have the results in 12-24 hours, but we have a connecting flight in about 20 hours, so decided to confirm with LATAM that we would be able to fly - even if we don’t have the results.
Then off to stand in another line for passport control and finally we are land side and in Santiago.
Quarantine in Chile is different that in other countries as no one really seemed to care if we actually went to the hotel, or if we flew the next morning without our PCR test results. LATAM certainly didn’t, when we actually found someone who spoke English.
We are spending the night at the Holiday Inn airport hotel and our room wasn’t ready yet, so we had lunch downstairs - no quarantine police around.
We have to check in using an app for the first 7 days of our visit to Chile to confirm that we aren’t suffering any symptoms, so we started that today - BTW it’s now March 6, Sunday.
Finally up to the room and we are exhausted. We rouse ourselves to go downstairs for dinner - no COVID police again - and have our first Pisco Sours which taste wonderful to me.
I chance to check on our PCR tests and, amazingly, I have the result and it is negative. And so is Chrises, so we are now actually able to take our trip!! Hurray!!
Tomorrow we are off to Atacama!
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