Today was all about the travelling.
We started with a fond farewell to Explora, including a final goodbye to some of our friends (Gerry, a lovely Chilean lady called Marcia who had been on a few of our trips) - plus a hello and goodbye to a Canadian couple who’d just arrived, who were in the same hotel with us at Buenos Aires! We even had time for pancakes at breakfast - Jemima’s first opportunity, so she was happy.
And then, just after 10am, the journey began.
1. Minivan to airport - 1 hour
A drive through the desert, leaving the oasis of San Pedro to get to the oasis of Calama, a large town, site of the biggest copper mine in the world. (It is weird seeing an oasis from a distance - it is literally a puddle of lush green in a sea of dry grey-brown - completely out of place.) Calama airport was small, but like all our airport experiences in South America, very efficient.
2. Flight from Calama to Santiago - 2 hours
Domestic flight - all very easy.
3. Walk between domestic and international terminals, and wait for next flight - c 4 hours
Again, easy, once we had confirmed that our luggage was going directly to Florianopolis and we didn’t need to do anything. (With all these flights, I’ve had a low-level fear of lost luggage - it would be such a pain…) Santiago airport is huge and very modern. The usual stamping in and out as we were now leaving Chile (and the Spanish-speaking world! Back to struggling in Portuguese…).
Our 2.5 hours stopover turned into nearly 4 thanks to a flight delay, but again, pretty painless (apart from the most disorganised McDonalds I’ve ever been to - our first on this trip, and the famed processes were NOT functioning as designed…)
4. Flight from Santiago to Florianópolis, Brazil - 3 hours
Another easy flight - we even got fed! (Cheese and ham toastie, fruit, and chocolate - definitely one up on Ryanair.)
It was instantly SO different to Atacama - back to the tropics. The humidity hit you straight away, and outside the airport there were huge planters filled with giant green palms - we were definitely not in the desert any more…
5. Uber from airport to resort - 1 hour 10 mins
It was pretty late by the time we arrived in Florianopolis, but Uber was ready to help - they even had a designated signed Uber meeting point outside the front of the airport. Jemima was asleep within 5 minutes, so I spent the drive holding her head up.
First views of Florianopolis (which is a large island attached to Brazil’s mainland by bridges) - very modern, with big highways stretching up its west coast lined with interior design shops, or car sales garages. At the north-west corner we turned inland through what looked like the Magaluf of Florianopolis (fittingly called Ingleses), where people looked like they’d just left the beach, even at 11pm, and the bars were heaving.
Our hotel is in the north-east corner, and when we got there it looked huge. And from check-in, definitely a “resort” - we had keycards with lanyards…
6. Shuttle from entrance to our hotel - 10 mins
We were booked into the hotel, rather then one of the many self-catering villas at the Resort, and this was down near the beach. So our final stage was a shuttle ride to the hotel, where the room looked a bit more spartan than we were expecting, but with a fabulous view over the beach. Too tired to think any more, we fell into bed at about midnight.
14 hours after we’d started our journey, it was finally over.
Only one photo from today: the oasis of San Pedro:
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