Ann awakes about 7am and we wait until 8am to go to the
boarding gate for our 9.25am departure to Montevideo. The flight is on time and we line up to board
the plane. As we get to the front of the
line we are pulled aside. The attendants
could speak English here so this was handy.
We were then told that we were not on this flight, we had been
transferred to another flight to Montevideo that was leaving from a different
terminal. What? Why were we not told
about this and how come there was only one flight going to Montevideo on the
departure boarding screen? Apparently
this happens every day according to the attendant. We were transferred to another airline and
should have been in a different terminal to catch the flight – we didn’t even
know about flying with a different airline and we didn’t know there was even
another terminal at the airport! We were told that we would be put on the next
plane that was heading to Montevideo, pity that plane was in another 12 hours!
The attendant offered us food and drink vouchers, but I wanted more! I asked if
we could be put into the VIP lounge, effectively like the Koru Lounge for Air
NZ. He asked his supervisor and that was
all fine, so we had the day to spend in the VIP lounge. We would have liked to have spent the day
looking around Sau Paulo as we did not intend on coming here originally, but we
were already through customs and couldn’t enter the country. Not ideal.
During the day in the VIP lounge we really make sure we get our fair
share of everything! We feast out on the food, probably too much, we have
plenty of drink (non alcoholic, the last thing I wanted was an alcoholic
drink), I even have a long shower, the only problem here is that I have to
change back into my clothes as our baggage is with the airline. I also have a 3 hour snooze, my turn this
time! We spend the majority of the day watching You Tube, and then realise we
were using most of the speed on the wifi connection.
We finally catch our flight at about 9pm, half
an hour late. This was after 3 gate
changes for the flight, and then our gate required us to go downstairs, get our
boarding passes scanned and checked and then hop on a bus and transported to
the plane. This airport is terribly set
out, inefficient and is very unorganised.
Our flight is a smooth flight and takes about 2 and a half hours. When we land quite a few people at the back
started clapping, I didn’t understand why as it was one of the smoothest
flights I had ever been on! We have
arrived in Montevideo, finally!!! When we
get into the airport we are very impressed, it is a modern state of the art
airport, far superior than any other airport on the continent. We get our passports stamped and go to
collect our luggage. It has not
arrived. Could this trip get any worse?
Well I suppose it could but it could be a lot better than what we have
experienced! We make a claim at the lost
luggage counter, get details of the claim and are told to ring up tomorrow
morning to check the status of our luggage.
They believe the luggage will arrive at about midday tomorrow as it was
still in Sau Paulo. We then go out to
catch a taxi, it is very fresh outside, Ann is not happy about the cold
weather. On the plane the pilot advised
us it was 4 degrees in Montevideo.
Definitely a change, coming from 35 degrees in Cartagena to 4 degrees in
Montevideo!!! We get into the taxi and drive to the city, which is about 25
kilometres away. The city looks very
modern, there are some fantastic houses out by the airport. We get to the hostel and the driver charges
us UR1,000 peso’s, which is about NZ$70 (exchange rate is about UR15 peso’s to
NZ$1), we are outraged, this is by far the most expensive taxi ride. We kick up a fuss and pay the driver who is
also getting angry. Our hostel manager
then tells us there are two types of taxis in Montevideo, the other brand
charges half the price. We jumped into the wrong taxi. We then go to sleep to get some well needed
rest.
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