the end

Breakfast for me is eggs and cheesy toast. I buy a Cosmo for the bus ride, and Steffi gets a newspaper. Yay, finally we are on a Chilean bus once again. Pure luxury! The trip to Santiago takes about 24 hours.

At the airport, we check in and chill in a café, drinking coffee and eating cheesecake. Eventually, it’s time for us to get moving, so we ask for the check. This takes about 20 minutes however, and now we’re really in a hurry to catch our flight. We stand in line for security. I am totally out of it after out bus ride, and not really paying attention. Steffi isn’t either, apparently. I don’t realize that we are in the wrong line until I finally make it to the window after about 15 minutes. The lady takes my passport, looks at my ticket, and tells me that I am in line for international flights, we need to be at domestic departures. Which is of course at the other end of the airport. We hurry across and go straight through security, luckily there is no line. When we arrive at the gate, the plane is still there, with the gangway attached. They begin retracting the gangway. The lady at the gate says we are too late, I can’t believe it. The plane is right there!

And that’s how we missed our flight. We aren’t the only ones: a family of 5 runs up and also want on. She says there is another flight in a couple of hours.

The plane begins rolling away.

She looks at our tickets and says “Steffi, Marah….I’m sorry. The next flight is not until tomorrow!” I really can’t believe it now, the family is pissed off too. I am tired and was so looking forward to being home this evening.

Now we will be spending the night in the airport, in our clothes and without luggage, as neither of us are prepared to shell out for another night in a hostel.

Of course, it turns out that we cannot change our ticket to another day because we booked the cheapest fare. And there are no more flights the same day. The only option left to us at the airport is to buy another flight back, which is not an option. We go back to the bus station and get on the next bus to Temuco. Another 9 hours on the bus…I call Viviana to let her know we will be late and arriving at 1 am.

When we go to pick up our bags (which made the flight) from the airport the next day, Steffi’s backpack is broken: the plastic back support, not just a strap or something.

I am really thinking about getting a canvas bag for mine.