The Longest Day

Today was a weird day. We were up around 8am in Auckland, where our flight to Santiago, Chile was scheduled for 16:05. The route took us across the international date line, effectively throwing us back into Sunday for a brief period, and meaning that we had to wind our watches back by fifteen hours - longer than the twelve hour flight, meaning that we landed before we took off.

I tried to put this time travel out of my mind and enjoyed the unseasonally sunny and warm weather that graced northern New Zealand this morning. We took a walk along the Viaduct Harbour, reprising our initial foray into the city on our arrival six weeks ago. We stopped at Natural Café for a final 'eggs and avocado' breakfast and an obligatory flat white.

Nature's goodness

We ate outside in the sunshine and 19°C temperature. According to many tourism activities - our van rental included - the beginning of May signals the arrival of winter. However, in practice it won't get cold in Auckland until June or July and the season is relatively short lived.

Winter is coming

We took a post-prandial walk in Albert Park, where the recent batch of graduates were having photographs taken against the stunning autumn colours wearing their uniquely dashing robes featuring pink lining and a fur-lined hood.

Can you feel the power... of the graduators

The park was charming, and gardeners tended the vegetable patches, which took the place of traditional flower beds with decorative edibles, such as red and yellow chard, pinky purple kale, and curly parsley. A most unusual sight.

Tending the veg patch

By this time, the airport called, so we picked up our bags and made our way by bus to the international terminal. After check-in, we settled into the Qantas lounge, only to be told that the inbound aircraft from Sydney would be arriving late, so our take-off was delayed by nearly two hours. This gave us plenty of opportunity to sample the excellent NZ wines, which outshone the poor selection of beers. Despite the availability of an excellent range of home-grown craft beers, the best the fridge could muster was a Fat Yak from NZ's larger West Island (yes, Australia). Boo.

Pre-flight snack

Once in the air, the LAN Chile flight was largely uneventful. The lengthy flight time (almost 12 hours) allowed for plenty of film viewing, including the incomprehensible and unconscionable events depicted in Selma, the masterful cinematography of Birdman, and the Moebius-like plotline of Interstellar. The latter's bending of time and space added to the impression of our apparent feat of going back in time.

On our descent into Santiago, the Andes range was prominently visible, separating Chile from Argentina, but as we reached ground level, the peaks were shrouded by a cloud of dust or smog - it was hard to tell which.

A trip on the Cuentropunto airport bus followed by a short hop on the Metro brought us to our destination - the Ecohostel on General Jofré.

Colourful frontage of Ecohostel

Dropping our bags, we got a steer to a vegetarian restaurant from the hostel, which took us the short distance to the centre of town.

Veggie burrito

At El Naturista, the menu was entirely in Spanish and so picked something relatively familiar.  The veggie burrito was not bad, but a little uninspired. Before the food arrived, we we were plied with ample bread and a salsa-like dip, known as pebre.