Estresada

Do you ever have those days when you set out to do the right thing and it all back fires in your face? I have learnt that being organised in Santiago doesn't count for anything for it is a world where nothing is done electronically or automatically. From my work, I have been receiving cheques as my payment and from these cheques is taken out superannuation and insurance. However, it your duty to file tax separately and worst of all you must then join the legions of other people with cheques queuing in the bank to get them cashed in. The end of the month is when everyone receives their cheque and when you can see lines of people filed from the cashier to the footpath outside.

The 31^st of November, the day before my flight to San Pedro de Atacama, I headed to the office to collect my cheque. There was already a line of people waiting and oh boy, did we wait! Apparently the head of Human Resources had forgotten to sign the cheques and so we not only had to wait for him to respect his responsibility, we had to wait for him to return from his late lunch. This meant that by the time I received my cheque the banks were already closed. Not to worry, I would go at 9 the following morning, as soon as the bank opened. I wasn’t due to fly until 11:55am.

My lovely Chilean accompanied me to the bank at 9:05am and what do you know, the line was already out the door. He also had to cash a cheque at the neighbouring bank so off he went. Now at the particular bank where I have to go to, there is only one cashier who attends to non-clients hence the extremely long line, more so than other banks. This meant that my lovely Chilean had already cashed his cheque by the time I had moved 5 or 6 places forward. It was terrible! We waited an hour for the money I really needed for my trip and then went running back to the house to collect our luggage.

We had planned to take public transport to the airport because it's a million times cheaper and so we set out on the metro. This particular day, the metro was very slow, stopping at the platform for minutes at a time instead of flashing through like it usually does. We travelled from one end of the line to the other and more. Finally we got out and instead of taking the bus, we took an expensive taxi because we feared missing our flight. We arrived exactly 40 minutes before the flight.

Well not according to their schedule! You see, on my printed copy of my ticket it said the flight was due to leave at 11:55am but when we arrived they were displaying the departure time of 11:50am. We had therefore arrived 5 minutes and they just wouldn't let us on. Our hearts sank. We had been so organised, we had packed our bags the day before, we had bought food to take with us but all because of the line at the bank and the inability for companies to deposit money directly into accounts, we missed our flight.

They put us on the next flight, due to leave 3 hours later. With frowning faces but still a little hope in our hearts we went to have something to eat. Not a very good meal, I might add, especially for the price but I guess that's to be expected in an airport. We then went through security and were sitting at our gate when 5 minutes before boarding time we heard that our flight had been cancelled and we needed to make our way back over to check-in.

And so off we went back through security and over to check-in to meet yet another extremely long line. By the time we arrived at the desk the next flight was already full. We were placed onto the last flight of the day and given a lunch voucher. Having already eaten we went back to the restaurant to pass the time, a whole 9 and half hours in totally that is.

We finally boarded and sat in first class, not that it made much difference in the small plane. I think we might have had more leg room? From the airport in Calama we took a transfer to San Pedro de Atacama in the pitch darkness, passing an intense car accident along the way, making me feel even more uncomfortable at the speed we were travelling at. We arrived at the small town at 1am where our friends, who had taken the original flight, met us at the hostel.

A bad start to a great trip!