Sitting in Cafe Nero with Carolynn in Terminal 5 at Heathrow saying our goodbyes as I prepare for a 16 hour non stop flight to Santiago Chile. This is the one part of any trip where butterfly’s abound and sadness over rules the excitement of the up and coming walk or climb. At the security entrance we cuddled for the last time. I wondered through security and into the Club Lounge. Matthew would be proud of me only 3 hours before the flight leaves! It’s here where I meet one of my fellow walkers, Holly. We’ve never met before, but I assume we’ll get to know each other in the next two and a half weeks. I’ve done a number of trips with total strangers as my companions and have made some life long friends. I’ve also had a couple of trips where, how do I put it, the more stranger companions and I haven’t necessarily hit it off. So I’m always a little dubious about organising trips with people I’m not familiar with. Meeting someone for the first time at an airport is not easy for either of us, but I think we got off on the right foot. My problem is that I’m a bit of a loner and struggle these days and most of the people that will read this blog, know full well how socially inept I am.
16 hour flight to Santiago, I don’t think I need to say how tedious a flight that is… there’s only so many films a person can watch even with that much free time on their hands! The flight landed on schedule and I have to say it was the softest landing I’ve ever experienced. The next 16 hours were spent at a hotel near the airport and then repeat. Maybe not a 16 hour repeat, well actually only a 4 hour repeat. At 4pm Chilean time we landed at Puerto Natales the gateway to the Torres National Park. So we’d arrived, Holly, Andrew and myself, sharing a room in a hostel killing time again waiting for the clock to tick around for the bus to depart to the National Park tomorrow lunchtime.
