I left Christchurch early on the 17th July. I flew up to Auckland to catch the LAN Airways flight to Santiago. The flight to Santiago was to take about 11 hours, so I had decided when I was planning the trip to stop over in Santiago just so that I could get some sleep and rest ( I am hopeless at sleeping on planes). Also the time zones were going backwards so my body clock was getting some stick again.
The hotel I was staying in was supposed to be close to the airport - as it turns out it was only about 15 minutes away. However when I cleared customs and tried to get my bearings I needed to get a small amount of money for a taxi ride and some food. - Just a note at this point as you get into the airport proper coming out of arrivals you can hear the taxi drivers baying for business.
I went to the money exchange but on the way asked a taxi driver how much it would cost to take me to the hotel, he said 20,000 pesos (which is just over £20). Because I did not know for sure how far the hotel was at that time and what the taxi rates were like, I said OK. - You know when you do something and you immediately think - you have been conned - well I had that feeling. Turns out I was right, when I got to the hotel, which was fine by the way, I asked at reception how much I should have been charged - it should have been about 5,000 pesos - I had paid about four times over the odds - I felt quite sick. As it happens the hotel actually run a courtesy service to the airport which I did not know about. At least I got a ride back for nothing - they also gave me a breakfast free of charge at 4.15 am the following morning which I did not expect - so I felt a bit better about things after that.
The flight from Santiago to Sou Paulo took about 4 hours and I landed at Sau Paulo international at about 12.30 mid day on the 18th July. From this point the next 18 hours turned out to be a nightmare !!.
(as I write this the spell check on my PC has decided not to work - spelling has never been one of my stronger points - so apologies in advance for any errors ) john 22/7
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