We left home extra early after having completed all our house jobs. For the first time, the long stay car park was almost full! I guess that was due to it being mid-week (we usually fly at the weekend). Fortunately there was a space against the fence where Alan likes to park and we were soon on a transfer bus to Terminal 5.

We were so early for our flight we couldn’t check-in, so we had a meal in the departures area before security. By the time we had eaten it was 3 hours before the flight and time to drop our bags. BA are introducing ‘do-it-yourself’ check-in and bag drop, so we had to print our own luggage labels, fix them to the bags and wave them off on the belt ourselves. After these flights we would be back up to Bronze with BA Executive Club again so it will hopefully be the last time we have to do the DIY check-in.

There was no queue through security and we used the remaining time to do some shopping… a new bigger memory card for Alan’s camera.

We got onto the plane relatively quickly and started to back up from the gate when we suddenly stopped. The captain announced that our tug had broken down and we had to wait for a replacement. We finally took off nearly an hour after our scheduled time.

The flight was relatively smooth, we had World Traveller Plus seats (Premium Economy) so we had a little extra space and the meals were slightly better than in Economy. We had several movies to catch-up on and I watched two before I attempted to get some sleep on this 14 hour flight. Think I may have slept for all of 2 hours before I started to watch movies again!

Our delayed start had brought us into Santiago 40 minutes late, we hadn’t managed to make up the time due to strong head winds. I had completed our custom cards on the plane so we were ready for boarder control but it wasn’t ready for us. There must have been 2 or 3 flights arriving from Europe at once so we had about a 40 minute queue to wait in. Good news is by the time we got through our bags were waiting for us.

Through customs next, where all our bags, including hand luggage had to be scanned before we could exit into arrivals. Arrivals was chaos, people were just standing chatting blocking the way out! Alan seemed to get some enjoyment out of hitting a few ankles as he literally rammed his way out of the exit! It was quicker for us to cross the road and re-cross it again to get to departures than it was to negotiate ourselves around the chatting people.

Once we finally got to check-in for our next flight we found only a short queue. I had worried just a little about the weight of our hand luggage, it being twice the allowance, however, I needn’t have been concerned as it wasn’t even looked at let alone weighed.

No queue at security and we were through to the very familiar departure area from our last Chile trip where we had been in and out of so many times… but it wasn’t so familiar! Our favourite restaurant had been replaced with a McDonalds! So we ate at our second favourite Restaurant Tamarugo. Struggling to decide what to eat, the waiter helped make up our minds by suggesting the salmon special. The grilled salmon and salad came with toast and along with 2 Pepsi lights and 3 large beers the bill came to 46,300 pesos. The free airport WiFi worked well and we spent a couple of hours relaxing before it was time to head to our gate.

LATAM use the numbered seat queuing system and as we had seats in row 20 we got to the head of the rows 1-25 queue. We started a trend and everyone else then queued up. A couple of minutes later boarding started. We managed to put our bags above our heads and settled in to enjoy the stunning view of the mountains, lakes and glaciers as we flew down the length of Chile. There was no in-flight entertainment so the view out the window was what kept us entertained as we took a quick stop at Puerto Montt to drop off passengers and pick up some more. The views over Los Glaciares & Torres del Paine National Parks were enough even to stop Alan from sleeping… or was it me elbowing him that kept him awake!