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October 11, 2005

Lap of Luxury

I had planned to travel up to Asuncion, then up to Campo Grande and the Pantanal, but it turned out there wasn't a bus for five days. I had recently been offered more work in Russia and it looked likely that I would head back to Sakhalin in early November. I didn't want to fly straight from South America and wanted a chance to see everyone at home again and ditch my stinky backpack, so I changed my flight to London at the last minute. I then couldn't get a place on a bus from Montevideo to Sao Paulo, so I ended up having to wait eight hours in the bus station, then catching a bus to Porto Alegre, then another epic wait and another overnight bus journey. It's fortunate that the South American buses are so luxurious, although there was no free champagne on these trips! I've been spoilt forever now!

I reached Sao Paulo at six in the morning (after a surprisingly deep sleep) and after two days and two nights without a bed or a shower, I was feeling pretty manky. I had no desire to go back into the city, and my flight wasn't until 21.30 that night, so I had twelve hours to kill. I couldn't face the prospect of trying to shower and sleep at the bus station or any of the sketchy hotels in the vicinity which looked as though you'd pay by the hour for a room, so I decided to finish my trip clean and well-rested, and checked into the Novotel for a day. Decadent, eh? I loved it - had a gorgeous hot shower with clean towels, watched some trashy telly, slept peacefully for a few hours, then had another shower... just because I could.

The flight to London was all right, though I was stuck in the seat near the toilets - despite checking in early and asking for another. Varig is probably the worst airline I've flown on as they seem to be consistently delayed and I always end up in a crummy seat. The aeroplane itself was an MD-11 which looked like it hadn't been updated since the 1970s, with small discoloured TV screens hung above the aisle. We took forever to take off and I wondered whether we'd ever get airbourne or if the pilot planned to drive to London. It was the only flight I've been on where the cabin crew led the applause when we landed, with whoops and cheers. I don't know whether it was an in-joke on their part, or genuine relief that we'd made it without incident, but it didn't fill you with confidence. At least we hadn't made any stops en route, though there were some poor lemons staying on board to go onto Copenhagen.

Not unexpectedly, it was raining at Heathrow. I was going to try and get a bus from London to Brussels, but realised I would miss it after the delay and the time it took to get out of the plane, through immigration, customs, baggage collection, and into central London. I knew there was a BMI flight leaving at 14.30 and decided to try and catch that, since it was the cheapest one going and the same price as the Eurostar (which, by the way, is extortionate at the moment). By the time I had raced through the underground passages at the airport from Terminal 4 to 1 - losing control of my trolley along the way and crashing into a wall, to the mirth of onlookers - it was 14.00. They let me buy a ticket and told me to move fast and I rushed through to the gate, where they were doing the last call. Made it!

Posted by Rowena on October 11, 2005 06:11 PM
Category: Brazil
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