Hopefully we are coming home!!!

At 7am we finally managed to secure tickets out of Argentina on paper anyway ( these being the third tickets we own to leave this country!!)
Went back to sleep for a couple of hours as exhausted. At 11am got a message from a friend at the airport “ get here now they are locking down the airport and only letting in one person at a time!!”
Straight to shower, print new tickets and taxi called in record time.
We anxiously got to the airport and luckily got let in as we had tickets. Hurdle 1 done. We then queued to see if we could get on an earlier flight “ no”.
Queued for 2 hours after being told we could check in early only to be turned away at the front of queue- to be fair it was to check in people with earlier flights.
Then we discovered there was another direct flight to Santiago leaving 2 hours before ours, so back to the service desk it was to be told “ go to check in and they will check for u”- back to check in. Told to wait another hour to check in. Did this and finally checked in and got seats on earlier flight - yay!! We were then told that we were put on the earlier flight because our 20.20 one had been cancelled!!
Definition of relief ..... 2 boarding passes in situ!!
After a totally empty of passengers security snd passport check we find a blinding oasis of amazingness....An Aussie Outback Steakhouse open!!! No word of a lie!! K had an amazing steak sandwich and I finally got a coffee. We realised we hadn’t had a meal since Monday - now Friday!!
Anyway we r now sat in row 42 of a plane for Buenos Aires to Santiago. Sadly the plane is 80% empty- gutting.
We have paid an extortionate amount to get seats due to “ limited availability” and now these planes are empty.
We were told we couldn’t get out 2 days ago because there were no seats available but an Aussie couple on it messaged to say their plane was also 1/3 full.
We could assume it is to limit contact between people but they have everyone seated together in a few rows and the rest totally empty - totally gutted. We could have been home days ago for probably a quarter of the price.
Anyway we are hopefully on our way and that all that really matters for now.
Never looked forward so much to a 4 hour layover in Santiago before!!

Santiago layover saw us nervously checking the Departures board every 10 mins until at 22.40 they posted our gate!! So many flights had the ominous “cancelled” sign next to them.
Gate 31 was full of apprehensive passengers all with horror stories of trying to get home to NZ, AUS or other places in the world. Everyone was exhausted with the stress of constant changes but finally boarding was called and we were away!
Interestingly the majority of us were all in “premium economy” with the economy section virtually empty. Whilst this normally would be considered quite nice in this situation where we had been made to pay an extortionate amount for our seats, in order to maximise our chances to get home, it really pissed us off because we could have just paid for an economy seat.
Despite this we were just super relieved to be taking off and getting out of the madness of being locked down in Argentina.
The 12 hour flight went v smoothly and the meals with LATAM were actually very nice- the first hot proper meal we had eaten for 4 days!!
On our way home!!Read more