|
Part 1
- WEST
SUSSEX TO CHILE and BRAZIL
Getting There
14.2.07
Haircut
to last a month and keep me cool – in short, short! Never mind, it
will grow on me ….
15.2.07
Tonight is my last night at home alone, tomorrow night TandeM [Thora and
Malcolm] will be here and I/we won’t be alone again here for 30
nights. Will be strange, very strange … and all the sights, sounds and
scents will be unfamiliar, not to mention the languages in most of the
places. I wonder how I will fare?
18.2.07
Ben and Lou arrived late afternoon to take us to the airport. This
is it then, I thought. All the weeks of preparation and anxiety and
now we’re at the moment of departure.
Five minutes after they had dropped us off at Terminal 4,
Heath
row, we had checked in [automatic check-in now], been herded by a kind
lady official to the head of the long queue [why??], deposit our
luggage, and were handed our boarding passes, a process which usually
takes an hour.
If that was bewildering, the next five minutes are even more so. I stop
to put my passport and boarding pass into my handbag, telling
Harvey
this is what I’m doing. Ten seconds later, there is no sign of
Harvey
. I walk about a bit, the length of the concourse twice, then ring his
mobile. He is equally bewildered to have lost me, I spot him before he
answers his mobile, turning this way and that. Conclude this doesn’t
augur well for the trip if we lose each other in the airport!
We both sleep a lot in our middle and aisle seats, the window seat being
occupied by a Brazilian lady not many years younger than us, all dressed
in black. We wake once in the night to find her astride us, a foot on
the arm of each of our seats, exiting to the toilets! Quite startling in
the semi-darkness, and a reminder that other races are not British!
|
|
19.2.07
There is an irony here; I am taking many remedies to combat jet lag,
exhaustion etc and during the flight I come down with what appears at
first to be a sudden cold. Like turning a tap on. Conclude eventually it
is an old sinus problem as it stops just as suddenly after 36 hours.
Monday, and we arrive at the hotel Gran Estanplaza in the business area
of Sao Paulo, surrounded by
similar high rise hotels and office blocks. Beautifully done out in
restful creams, our room is luxurious and the staff impeccable in dress
and manner.
Eat in the hotel bar as the main restaurant is inexplicably closed.
Since we are – again inexplicably - the only ones there, the service
is excellent.
20.2.07
Stayed in bed a.m. with my cold
for company, while
Harvey
explored downtown
Sao Paulo
.
Later
spend several hours traipsing along the Avenida Paulista, the most
famous avenue in Sao Paulo. Everything is closed. It is an extended holiday until Wednesday
[Tuesday today] so it covers our stay. This explains the absence of
people in our hotel last night. The city is practically empty too, like Paris
in August apparently Paulistians have removed themselves from the city.
It is almost 30 degrees and humid.
The Avenida is a long road of high rise buildings, a multitude of
designs, with an occasional old mansion still surviving, dwarfed in
between, most of which look in a state of disrepair. All except the Casa
das Rosas with its famous rose garden, though the house is still closed
to the public.
The Hospital Santa Caterina is a wonderful union of old and new. The old
part is the little chapel, very plain and simple for a Catholic church
with a Mary-blue ceiling and wonderful modern stained glass. It’s
joined to the modern hospital by a glass structure which allows you to
see the old building through it, ensuring a sort of continuity and flow
from the old to the new. With everything else in Sao Paolo built
upwards, it is a surprise to see acres of space in not one but two
foyers in the hospital. Light and airy and full of art works.
We walk in the Parque Trianon, somehow dark and joyless though I have to
say the shade is welcome. Its inhabitants vary from joggers to shoppers
pausing to rest to down-and-outs watched closely by two policemen.
Lunch at a Japanese sushi bar, where else would you go in
Brazil
, during an afternoon thunderstorm, apparently a daily occurrence at
this time of year.
Harvey
is having trouble finding a bank which will allow him to withdraw money.
When we arrived, the ATM at the airport coughed up, so we are puzzled.
After a couple of incomprehensible Brazilian banks, HSBC gives us
instructions in English and we find out we have insufficient funds in
the account. Impossible unless something dreadful has happened. Our
thoughts go to the airport withdrawal – has someone stolen his pin
number and emptied the account, and by implication the savings account
which feeds it? No way of knowing.
Coming back from the Avenida Paulista in a taxi,
Harvey
contrives to leave his wallet on the back seat. We know nothing of this
of course, until we get a call in our room, would he go down and collect
his wallet? Such honesty, unexpected. But on two counts - what is going
on with our finances??
21.2.07
Harvey
had a bad night, either too much garlic or bad fish at dinner in the
hotel last night. He’s just about ok for the flight to
Chile
at 11.am, though all he wants is to drink water and sleep.
Still no cash forthcoming from the ATM. We haven’t enough for the taxi
to the airport, so the hotel kindly pays the driver in advance and puts
it on our bill which we pay by credit card. This is getting worrying and
starts to take the edge off the trip. I have my card for my own account
and have brought details so I can make internet transfers into the
account, so we aren’t destitute yet. But what has happened to our
money?
As we leave, the two young handsome very cleancut male
receptionist/cashiers in the lobby take their hotel badges from their
lapels and give them to us as a keepsake of our stay. They offer them as
if they are a treasure. Part of me wants to laugh, but part thinks it a
nice touch. Remarkable service all round.
Rather bumpy as we come in over the
Andes
, but a remarkable sight. All the Latin Americans squeal as if they are
on a roller coaster, which helps the atmosphere no end. The English sit
po-faced as if nothing is happening.
Still no cash at the airport – ‘insufficient funds’ – so now we
are definitely worried.
Harvey
keeps texting the bank manager [after getting the number from Malcolm]
Arrive at
San Cristobal
hotel,
Santiago, Chile. Another lovely room with a
view over the city to the distant misty
Andes
. We order dinner in our room, served by our own butler in full fig. He
sets up a table with wonderful linen [as indeed is all the linen
everywhere in the hotel] and silver and crystal service. The table has a
hot compartment underneath to keep our beautiful food warm. Our butler
will pack or unpack for us, should we require him to. We decline the
offer. I’ve never been able to understand how people can have their
‘smalls’ handled by complete strangers.
The hotel is amazing, everything is sumptuous. The sandboxes for
discarding cigarette stubs before entering the lifts have the hotel
crest stamped on their raked surfaces. And we’re not even at Raffles
yet!
Harvey
has read that Chileans are pretentious, everything for the look of it.
They fill their supermarket trolleys with the most expensive caviar and
other luxury foods, so they are seen to be living the high life, then
when no one is looking, they leave the trolley and nip out without
buying anything!
22.2.07
Text from the bank saying to try card again, no explanation. It works!
We finally figure out that before we left, the bank upgraded our account
so in effect it was a new account. They must have forgotten to transfer
the conditions attached to the old account, so our automatic transfer to
top up the account daily from savings hadn’t worked. The bank of
course takes no responsibility for this, making no mention of what
happened, just that it is ok now. Hairy there for a while, even knowing
we had my account in reserve.
After the first real cup of tea since we left home, I spend the morning
reading by the pool in very pleasant temperature [no humidity].
Harvey
takes the metro downtown Santiago.
He comes back in time for a late buffet lunch, long and relaxing by the
poolside.
Late afternoon, when we hope it is cooler, we take the cable car to the
top of
San Cristobal
hill to the Sanctuary of the Virgin Mary. Wonderful views of the
enormous city, rows of distant snow capped
Andes
all round. We are amazed at the height of the peaks, having seen nothing
like that since
Nepal
.
Venture out into the city for dinner at a little roadside café, menu
totally in Spanish, waiter knows no English and we haven’t a word of
Spanish between us. In spite of our lack, we manage a very fair
selection of tapas, all edible, and with great amusement and goodwill on
all sides. We watch the people and traffic go by as dusk falls, and feel
very cosmopolitan all of a sudden. Don’t say we’ll losing our
Englishness …
We still haven’t fathomed the lighting system in our room. When we
switch off the bathroom lights, two others come on in the bedroom!
Tricky in the middle of the night.
Relaxing day, especially now the money is sorted, and ready for the
islands tomorrow, 5 days after we left home.
|
Gran Estanplaza Hotel, Sao Paulo
Casa das rosas,
Avenida Paulista, Sao Paulo
Casa das rosas
Parque Trianon, Sao Paulo
The Andes
View over city from hotel
San Cristobal Hill
Cable car
Harvey
Santa Maria Sanctuary
View from San Cristobal Hill
|
