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After a nice sleep in this morning, I slowly rose, had a shower and then made my way to breakfast.
My flight isn't until 6pm tonight, however I'm not really looking forward to the fact that my check out time is 12pm. There's not too much I can do about it though. So after breakfast I head back to my room.
I finish packing my bag.... and I start to think about the fact that this is the second last time I will have to pack up my bag!!! Thank goodness. It has been a love hate relationship. I love packing my bags, knowing that I am off to my next exciting destination, yet I hate trying to make everything thing just fit in. Not knowing if my zips are going to do up, or whether it is going to be a day that I need to repack 4 times just so I can squeeze those zips together.
Today, if I persevered, I could have zipped my bag up on the first go, however I decide that today the bag is going to win, so I reopen it to shuffle a couple of things around, and much to my surprise the zips came together quite easily!!!
All packed up, I then head to the reception desk, bag in toe, to check out. Now what shall I do. I decide the easiest option is to just park myself at one of the lounges they have near the lobby and bar. I can spend a while here, reading my book, surfing the net!! Let's face it, 6 hrs is way too early to be checking my bags in, and I don't want to have to be wheeling my bags all the way around the airport. I'm lucky, as I already have my boarding pass, which was issued yesterday. However, I now get the feeling that my allocated seat, whilst it is a window seat, is in fact right down the back of the plane again!! Oh well, it is what it is!!!
So I get about reading more of my amazing book, and even had enough time to finish it, and then time to download another!!!
With about 2.5 hrs to go until my flight, I decide that nows the time that I should go and check my bag in for my flight.
So I make the short walk across the road to the airport, again having to knock back the countless number of men offering their taxi services. Can they not see that I am heading into the airport, not out of it??
After a little bit of searching, I eventually manage to find the bag drop off for my flight to Easter Island. It was whilst I was checking in my bag, that the lady behind the counter advised that my plane had been delayed. Oh, ok, she shows me the ticket, and I now find out that my plane is leaving at 10 o'clock tonight, rather than the advertised 6pm. So I'm now looking down the barrel of waiting an extra 4 hours. Lucky I downloaded that new book!!
So, I'm standing at the checkin counter, and the lady tickets my bag, reprints a new plane ticket with the new time and gate number on it, and then tells me I need to wait. Ok. I'm not sure what's wrong, but it would seem like I'm waiting for the manager to get back. The lady didn't tell me anything, so we were just standing there, in an awkward type of silence. Until a few minutes later, the manager arrived. He starts fiddling around with a sealed envelope full of cards, and eventually pulls one out and gives it to the lady behind the counter. She then hands me my passport, my plane ticket and one of these cards. She explains that it is so I can have something to eat. Cool!!
So, with 6 hours until my flight, I had no where else to go, so I decided to head through security. I then set about trying to find somewhere where I can grab a bite to eat and a coffee. I walked past one cafe, and they say that they didn't accept the voucher, so I head to another cafe, who also say they don't accept the vouchers. I finally come across a Starbucks, who accepted it!! I ended up having a really nice late lunch/early dinner, a salad roll, a yogurt and a coffee... all for free!!!
Being Starbucks, I also managed to scab their wifi, and I watched a few videos and surfed the net for awhile as well!! Thank you Starbucks!!!
With a couple of hours down, I again am left to contemplate what to now do with the remaining 4 hours. Back to reading my book!!
So I manage to wait out the in total 6hrs. I don't know how, but I managed to do so without going crazy!! Our flight gate number was changed a few times, so I moved from gate to gate.
It was then finally time to board. We all found our seats, only to be told that the flight has been further delayed by another 30mins. I'm so glad that they turned on the inflight entertainment system, so it meant that I could start watching movies straight away!!
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the men down below, continually adding more cargo and luggage under the plane. It made me start to think, exactly how much weight can one of these planes take. I mean there is a lot of weight just in people on the plane, add their luggage, and what seemed like container ships full of cargo, I'm now starting to wonder whether this plane is even going to be able to lift it's belly off the ground?
I continue to watch my movie, and another announcement came over the PA system, that the plane was again delayed by another 30mins. We eventually took off at 11pm.
Once the flight took off, the 6 hours did go fairly quickly. I watched a couple of movies, and then popped some music on whilst I snoozed on and off for an hour. Before I knew it, the cabin lights were switched on to full ball, as we made our way in to land. Santiago time it was 5am, however Easter island time, was 3am. Thank goodness we managed to at least scrape back some time, for some much needed sleep. I also need to just say, that thank goodness this flight was a little more subdue than my last!!
I made my way off the tarmac, and headed in to the hut of an airport to collect my bag. What luck, my bag was again one of the first ones to be thrown through the hole, leading to the baggage carousel. I grabbed it from the belt, and just hoped like hell that the drug sniffer dog trotting around the baggage carousel, didn't decide that today was the day that he would pick up the scent of something in my bag, like the Colombian coffee beans!
Phew, as he continued to sniff his way around the airport, I made my way out of the airport, to find 2 big friendly giants out there. One of them holding the board with my name on it.
As I approached them, I was relieved that they had actually turned up at this ridiculous hour of the morning to pick me up. One explained that my full day tour will commence at 9am, this morning. Oh s***. This is going to be tough. Full day tour, with very little sleep!! Grumpy Michelle will be out to play today, that's for sure!!!
I'm led to a waiting van, and literally driven the 5 mins down the road to my hotel. I check in and am shown to my room, after the obligatory welcome juice upon my arrival. All the words started to mesh into one.... and the look of sheer exhaustion must have been etched across my face, as the guy said that he could explain the town map in more details if I needed it tomorrow. Brilliant idea.
I rolled into my room, got out the bare essentials, changed the time on my phone, and set my alarm for the morning, before resting my head on my pillow!! Finally it is time for sleep!!!
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