Las Condes, Santiago de Chile. 10.50.
After a flight that seemed to go on forever, I have made landfall in Chile. Tomás, my host for the next four weeks or so, very generously offered to come and pick me up from the airport – an offer I found it impossible to decline, operating on about an hour’s proper sleep and six hours of sleepless shut-eye.
Being right at the back of the plane meant that I was the very last customer served dinner, by which point they had run out of everything but chicken. I hadn’t eaten much, so that was fine by me – I thought it was really top-notch, by plane standards (or any standards, for that matter). The film choices were fab too, once I’d worked out where to plug in the complimentary headset (hint: it’s in the armrest to your right). I watched The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (largely on fast forward, as I’d had it on my mind a few days prior), considered Avatar III: Fire and Ash and then changed my mind and opted for Michael, the biopic about my all-time favourite artist that I had somehow managed to miss in cinemas this summer. I’m not normally a fan of biopics, lumping them somewhat unfairly under the same “cash-grab” category as Disney’s recent slew of remakes, but I thought this one was genuinely moving. Then again, I adore MJ and his music, so that’s probably my own bias talking.
I still managed to watch a silent version of Avatar on one of the telescreens in the row in front. It looked almost identical to the previous two films, boiling down to a sequence of who-took-who-prisoner and Eywa saves the day again, but maybe I was missing something without the dialogue.
I also managed to watch The Batman before landing in Santiago ahead of schedule at 7am this morning. That’s around six or seven hours of films, plus another six trying to get some sleep – and that’s still not the entirety of the flight time. That’s an indication of just how long the journey to Santiago is. Thank goodness it was all in the dark!
It took about an hour to get through customs, largely because the immigration control was very busy for seven o’clock in the morning. I had a gut feeling I’d be assigned to Gate 13 – unlucky for some – which I was, some thirty minutes later, only to find that Señorita Allende at the control desk was writing her next novella for each customer, so the queue for Gate 13 moved at a snail’s pace. I was two clients from the desk when she put on her coat, packed her things and signalled to the rest of us that her shift was over and to find another gate. The man at Gate 12 was much more efficient: a quick glance at my passport, a stamp (yay!) and through.
I was stopped at customs, which was an interesting change, because of the marmalade I’d brought over as a gift for Tomás and his family. I’d forgotten how much of a fuss is made of preserves! They let me through without a fuss – and with the marmalade, amazingly – but maybe next time I’ll stick to chocolate.
First impressions of Santiago? I’ve barely got to know the place, but from a single drive across the city to my host’s home in residential Las Condes, it’s a very different city to Lima or Arequipa. It feels instantly more like Madrid or Barcelona in its architecture, with its tower blocks and its vast network of underground highways. A dense wintry cover of cloud is currently hanging over the city, shrouding most of the snow-capped peaks beyond a grey veil, while the thick layer of smog that hovers above the city was immediately obvious upon leaving the airport.
It feels decidedly weird leaving England with a tan and a t-shirt, getting on a plane to somewhere abroad and immediately having to throw on a jumper and some warmer socks. It’s also a positively balmy 17°C here, a point emphasised by the faraway screeching of monk parakeets, an invasive species in most European cities but just as native to this strip of South America as the puma and the condor. It’ll be even colder down south in Patagonia. I hope my winter gear is warm enough!
I’m giving up on trying to catch up on lost sleep. It’s not working, and probably dangerous to try, or I really will throw my sleeping patterns right off. I’ll get a proper night’s sleep at the hostel I’ve booked in downtown Santiago tonight, after getting my bearings and catching the Spain v Belgium game, of course. Until then, let’s take it slow. Don’t want to burn out before I’ve even started my placement now! BB x
The Book of Barnabas 