Bienvenidos a Chile--Part -1

In September 2007, I got chance to visit Latin American Country Chile. Memories of my first international flight are still so fresh and alive in my mind. Even though I was excited about going on overseas assignment from office for the first time, the travel time to reach there was all that kept me tensed.

Being a pure vegetarian, I had to pack so many food items with me in my luggage as in Chile all Indian spices and Dals are not available in market. Thanks to my mother who packed almost 20 kg bag full of food items. She was having an anticipation that her daughter is going to deprived from all heavenly vegetarian food for my entire stay of 6 months in Chile.

According to my itinerary from Bangalore I had to go to Mumbai to catch British airways international flight to reach London. After 9 hours of marathon transit time at London Heathrow airport I had to catch another flight to reach Buenos Aries, Argentina. Finally after 3 hours of transit time at Buenos Aries I had to take last flight to Santiago, Chile. All above permutations and combinations of flights was going to take total 47 hours of journey from Bangalore to Santiago.

I bid good bye to my roomie who came to see me off at Bangalore Airport and started my journey. Who knew that I was going to go through the funniest journey ever for next 2 days?

When I reached Mumbai airport, British airways staff stopped me to go for immigration as they had not yet got my luggage from Bangalore airport. Just before 15 minutes of departure of my flight somehow they were able to locate my luggage from domestic connecting flight of Bangalore. One ground duty officer of British airways then immediately called me; I identified my luggage and got the boarding pass. I rushed like mad cow for immigration. British airways staff had to accompany me as I had to break the queue of immigration and had to do emergency immigration clearance. Finally I was able to board the flight at last moment like VVIP.

This was just glimpse of tedious journey. The saga had just started at Mumbai Airport. The journey from Mumbai to Buenos Aries via London was luckily smooth. But life again turned me on at Buenos Aries Airport. After almost 42 hours of journey when I reached there I was very much exhausted. My mind was really inactive when I disembarked the British airways flight.

I just wanted now to go to my hotel room and sleep. But I had to spend 3 hours of transit time and another 2 hours flight journey to Santiago till I was going to get that. I just kept on walking with other fellow passengers not knowing where to stop and which way to go for catching international connecting flight.

The Buenos Aries airport was undergoing some repair work that time so they had removed all sign boards. It didn’t click in my Ghanchakkar mind that I should have taken direction guidelines from British airways staff for my next flight to Chile. Instead I in half sleep kept on walking with fellow passengers towards exit.

As a result of that, I found myself queued up in Immigration counter but I did not know that time that this queue is for immigration. A Lady Officer at counter asked for my passport. I considered it as a security check exercise and gave my passport to her. She again and again checked it. She almost repeated this activity for 5 minutes, flipping of each page of passport very diligently and stared at my face on each page flip.

I noticed her and was thinking why this lady is giving so scary look to me as if I am a criminal. Till that time I was not at all aware that I was standing at exit gate immigration counter. That lady was checking my Argentina visa in order to allow me go outside airport. Obviously I was not having Argentina visa stamped in my passport and that was the real reason of her staring looks at me.

She put my passport in her drawer and started speaking something… which went over my head. Yes you guessed it right… she was speaking Spanish and yes I was and still I am almost zero in Spanish language. I told myself: ‘Bravo Hetal, welcome to Spanish world; now find some way to deal with her.’

I asked that lady to return my passport. She instead of understanding it kept on speaking in Spanish which was making no sense to me. Finally after listening to my craving and pity shouts of “English… English” she got to know that I am not able to understand her language. She started enacting through her hand gestures to communicate with me. The sign language of hers was easier to understand than her Spanish to me. I managed somehow to make her understand that I want to catch flight for Chile and searching the International connection area direction. And I do not intend to stay back in Argentina or go out of the Airport. All dumb sherads games played in school and college helped to enact this much.

At last I came to know that I had come to wrong way and by mistake have reached immigration counter that’s why they are asking for visa. With exchange of sign language with that Lady Officer finally I got route map how to reach there. In all this sign language drama in immigration counter I had wasted 2.5 hours already. I was having last 30 minutes to board the flight for Chile.

Again I had to run, and hurry up to catch the flight. I was madly running here and there in corridors of airport with my hand baggage. Due to no sign boards it was extremely difficult to locate correct direction. I would have repeatedly crossed same corridors may be twice or thrice in that mad rush of finding way out. The workers who were doing repair works at airport were looking at me and laughing. Why really why all recognize Ghanchakkars like me in a moment? But in a way it is good at least we spread smile on faces of other people by our very own ghanchakkargiri.

Luckily I was able to reach to the Chilean airlines counter within time and could hope on the flight again at last moment. I was so tired that the moment I got my seat I slept. After some 10 minutes one sweet voice of airhostess struck my ears…”Buenos Dias Senorita….. ###....*****…????.....”. I could understand only one word from her entire sentence. Thanks to Hindi movie DDLJ :) I was aware of this and only one Spanish word ‘Senorita’. One familiar word from unknown person in a totally foreign land finally after around 4 hours was enough to wake me up from all my tiredness. It was enough to bring smile on my face.

I was so sleepy in my last flight from London to Buenos Aries that I had not taken any food during entire flight of 14 hours. My sprint adventure to catch flight at Buenos Aries airport just aggravated my urge for food more. I asked airhostess to bring water and some vegetarian food for me.

She was not speaking English so she asked one other air hostess who was the only English speaking crew member in flight to communicate with me. I came to know that they don’t serve pure vegetarian food on flight!!!!!!.

That I time I really cursed myself to say yes to my boss for this Chile travel. I was so annoyed and hungry without food for almost 20 hours. I had to manage with orange juice till I reached my hotel at Santiago, Chile. But the marvelous view of Andes mountain range from flight took away my entire annoyance and I got engrossed in appreciating the nature’s beauty. One of the view I had captured and have shared here.

Starting journey itself was so eventful; it gave me good preview of what my next 6 months stay at Chile was going to churn for me. I took taxi from Santiago airport for my hotel. On entire route I tried to figure out what the sign board at Santiago airport “Bienvenidos a Chile” meant!!!!!