The Terminal

We were up early this morning to get to the airport. After finally catching a taxi (we had ordered one from the hotel, but they neglected to tell us that the guy's car had broken down), and finally getting through to the absolutely-NO-English-knowledge driver that we wanted to go to the airport (yes, we flew around like kids pretending to be airplanes), we made our way there. Cairo airport is under heaps of construction, and it is very poorly labelled. Our driver had no clue where to go, and we finally figured out that he was to drop us off in the middle of a parking lot where we caught a bus to the terminal. On the short ride to the terminal, we had to endure the constant complaints from 2 whinging Poms about how 'absolutely stupid the Egyptian airport's system is', and how at 'every other airport in the world you are allowed to drive up to departures to drop off passengers' blah blah blah. We thought he'd give himeself a heart attack right then and there. It really wasn't a drama at all. When we checked in, the BA guy asked about our visas for Brazil, i.e. where are they? We told him we would get them on arrival in Rio de Janiero, having no idea if we could or not. But that was good enough for him as he let us on the flight.

It was a 5 hour flight to Heathrow, and we were excited for free food and movies. Since we were celebrating my Aunt Nancy's birthday, we started the day off with a few vodka & oranges with breakfast. Arriving in Heathrow around 11:30 am, we sort of got the notion that maybe we do actually need a visa before we get to Brazil. Nothing like forward thinking right? So we rushed to find a Brazil Lonely Planet in an airport bookshop (there were none, we had to settle on South America on a Shoestring) and all the information we got was that yes we both need visas. But nothing about whether or not we can get them on arrival. Knowing we had all day to waste in Heathrow, we decided to hop into the city to the Brazilian Consulate to get us some visas. We looked it up in the London A-Z book and then went through immigration. But, before we left, we decided to double check because we knew it wouldn't be cheap to take the tube into the city, pay for an immediate visa, eat lunch while waiting, etc. We went to the BA customer service counter, and after some in-depth reading of the rules, the guy concluded that nope, don't need visas before our arrival. Sweet, that saved us some money.

With nothing else to do, we wandered around the ENTIRE length of Heathrow in search of a Brazil Lonely Planet. After going to all 4 terminals (and Heathrow is so big that this required 2 free metro rides and copious amounts of walking), we finally found one. We spent the remainder of our time in the pub with a few beers, again in Aunt Nancy's honour. Our flight finally boarded around 9:00 pm and we were off to Brazil. We were stoked for free hot food, movies, and alcohol. Vodka and coke was our beverage of choice this evening, Nige mixing in a few beers in between.

It was over 14 hours to Sao Paulo, where we sat on the plane for about 45 minutes before leaving for Rio, about a 40 minute flight. We gathered our things, got off the plane and headed for immigration. When we reached the counter, the guy took his time flipping through our passports. This isn't too unusual since we have so many visas and stamps in them. He asked where our Brazilian visas were, and we said we still need to purchase them. He immediately got out of his chair, took our passports and headed to a manager's-looking room. Uh oh. A few minutes later, a woman came out and said
'I'm sorry, you're unable to get visas here. You need them before you arrive. What airline did you fly?'
'British Airways' we say. 'Both in Cairo AND Heathrow they said we didn't need visas before arriving.'
'Well, I'm sorry but you do. You cannot stay here in Brazil. Where is your next destination?'
'Lima, via Santiago.'
'Okay, we need to get you on the next flight to Santiago. Where are your luggage tags?'
And with that she took our passports, tickets, and luggage tags and told us we could go to the upstairs lounge to get a coffee or something while we waited. So we went upstairs, had a cafezhino (very strong, sweet Brazilian espresso) and a burger (luckily the cafeteria took $US), wandered around the few duty free shops, read some magazines, played cards, wandered around the same shops, had another burger and a beer, then went back downstairs for a change of scenery. About 5 hours later, the same woman was on her way out after her shift, saw us sitting there and said 'Did anyone come speak to you?' Uh, that's a big fat NEGATIVE. She managed to get us on the 2:30 flight to Santiago. Our luggage, she assured us, was checked in for us. When Nige asked about our passports, she said 'They will remain in police custody until you board the plane.' Feeling like criminals, we sat there for another few hours until finally a BA guy came with our boarding passes, luggage tags and passports. Knowing we'd be flying over the Andes, we spent at least 40 minutes discussing who we would eat first in the event of a crash.

Considering everything, the Brazilian customs lady was very apologetic and felt bad for us, and the BA guy was nice too. As a result of their 'mistake' BA is fined US$8000 and we miss out on Brazil. Oh well, so how about Chile? After more free food and alcohol, we arrived in Santiago around 8:00 pm, got our bags (amazingly they were there, as we hadn't seen them since Cairo), got some money and a shuttle to town. The first hostel we tried was full, so we ended up at the International Hostel, where we had a shower and went straight to bed. It had been 42 hours since leaving Cairo.