Just over a week ago, I passed my checkride in the simulator and am now officially Captain Brian, thank you very much. I tried in vain to determine how much time I would have before being summoned back to the real aircraft. The airline’s response was extremely ambiguous, but they allowed me to place four consecutive days somewhere on the calendar as guaranteed days off. They are also required to give me a minimum of 72 hours notice before I have to report, so between those two things, I could scrounge up a week to try and get away. It was a rather stressful summer with us both getting covid, and a prolonged training schedule that was a bit tiresome.
The biggest decision we had to make after finally returning to Los Angeles was where to go. With everything happening in Europe involving lack of staff, labor strikes, and just an overall lack of seats on planes, we directed our eyes south. We thought the Caribbean might be viable, but they’ve been inundated with seaweed on their beaches as of late. And so we directed our eyes further south to Chile, and more specifically Rapa Nui (perhaps better known as Easter Island). After being shut down for nearly two and a half years, Rapa Nui finally reopened to the outside world this week. There are still lots of restrictions, but more on that later.
Later in the afternoon, we headed off to LAX for the direct flight on LATAM to Santiago, Chile. This obviously wasn’t our first rodeo with this traveling out of LAX, and we are usually comfortable with arriving 90 mins ahead of the scheduled flight time. The LATAM check in counters had maybe 20 people, but only one was working, so we waited in line for about 25 minutes before we could even start the process. We were told that the Santiago flight had already closed off check-in and they were now only doing the Lima flight. At this point, we still had a solid 70 mins before the flight was scheduled to depart, so we were a little confused, particularly because we had been waiting in line for a while just to talk to someone.
Luckily, it all worked out. We were kindly issued tickets with seats next to each other, went through TSA Precheck, and then went to gate 154, which was printed on our tickets. That brought us to a deserted counter for a Lufthansa flight. Nicole’s keen eyes spotted the LATAM paint scheme across the terminal at a gate that was marked for Melbourne, Australia. Things were a little discombobulated, but we were reasonably confident that the flight was actually going to Santiago. With our first hurdle complete, we got our hotels for the next few days including one on Rapa Nui. I elected to use some points to get us confirmed seats to Rapa Nui just to be safe. It looked like the plane was close to full. Both of us have been trying to get there since before the pandemic, and standby travel is not always the best method of achieving the desired result.
While we are fortunate to live near LAX, an airport with many flight options all over the world, many of these tend to be a bit lengthy. The direct flight from LAX to Santiago is about 10.5 hours long and it felt it. We at least had a bulkhead, and thus some extra legroom, but it’s still a bit rough on the body. Around 7am local time, and a yawn-inducing 4am back in LA, we deplaned and went to customs.
It was a multi step process where we had to show a travel approval on our phones stating that our vaccines had been validated by the government. Nicole got randomly selected to get a PCR test. Poor Nicole. While she was back promptly from getting jabbed, it was reportedly a bit deep compared to what we’re used to. The airport seemed to be running quite efficiently with everything we had to go through. We eventually got an Uber and went into the city. We will be staying for two nights at the Boutique La Reve Hotel, a small hotel with European charm. Being as early as we were, we were fortunate to both check in and still take part in the included breakfast. But before embarking on any further adventures, we needed to get a bit of rest. We await the alarm.
passports & pepto bismol 