January 26 - Day 0 - Booking Woes, But Pleasant Trip

I did quite some research on how to get to South America from Vienna. For the longest time, my plan was to fly to Lima, then bike south to Santiago to return from there. A year earlier, I had seen a rather cheap flight with Delta - such a trip would have cost just around €800 return, but it would have meant transferring in Atlanta both ways - where there is no possiblity of transit, one has to enter the United States, includoing the luggage - only to recheck it again. No, thanks. I spent several hours trying other alternatives.

From a previous "life", I still had miles on the global airline allicance SkyTeam, enough for a business class trip for one leg of the trip. Then I stumbled upon an airline called Level (a subsidiary of British Airways and Ibera) that now offers relatively cheap flights to South America via Barcelone.

Anyhow, after a lot of trials and error, I finalized my trip. It was a lot cheaper flying first to Santiago via Barcelona with Level, bike north to Lima, then fly back from there via Amsterdam with KLM. The Level flight cost around €1,000 for a premium ecnomomy seat including the carriage of the bike, the KLM business class cost just €150, plus the majority of my remainung, idling points. I booked both flights, so for around €1,150, I had a flight in premium classes including the bikes - a pretty good deal). The outbound trip was on January 26, the return leg on March 19. I hoped the time would suffice to cover the distance of some 3,500 kilometers - including a large, dry desert, between the two cities.

Now came the hard part. Booking the bike on KLM was easy - it was a bit more complicated on Level. The issue was that the Vienna - Barcelona section was operted by yet another low-cost carrier, called Vueling. Now that was quite a horror. Despite me talking to the Level customer support, the carriager of my bike did not appear on the Vueling booking. I feared that at check-in in Vienna, Vueling would deny the carriage of the bike. I though the best coursre of action was to head to the airport a day before my flight and talk to the Vueling staff. They did confirm that the carriage of the bicycle was not included, so I paid €70 for that. (I have since claimed that amount back from Level, it is still work in progress).

The departure came, my Dad was nice enough to drop me off at the airport. I have had some trouble earlier with bike boxes in Vienna, the security wanting to open the box, not being able to reseal it - was quite a stress. So I went there real early and was the first in line. To my pleasant surprise, the check-in went real smooth. There was a very friendly lady at the counter, she helped me through the process, accompanied me even to security to make sure the box goes through. To put the icing on the cake, she assigned me a window seat in the second row (2A), which otherwise would have cost €40.

From there on, my entire trip to Santiago was a real enjpyable - though rather long - trip.

I had to laugh when the Vueling flight was parked right next to the terminal - and I actually witnessed the loading of my bike box! That was rather funny and relaxing at the same time.

My bike box being loaded

While the flight was packed, only 5 people sat in the in the first three premium rows (18 seats!), so I could spead out. I am a frequent flyer, still, selten have I had such a wonderful view as on this sunny day. There was uninterrupted view of the Alps, then of Genoa, Marseille and of other aircraft - we had a long race with another flight flying parallel and just above us.

Marseille

Race along hte Mediterranean coast

I had seven hours in Barcelone, but was a bit lazy to head into the city. At the huge airport, which was apparently built for future expansion in mind, I found an enite section where there was absolutely no one else. I could have organized a private rave party there.

Solitude

At midnight, it was time to board the Level flight. For sure, it is a low-cost airline - however, this premium economy was actually a business class of an earlier era - here I also had seat 2A, with again no one sitting next to me. The flight attendants were real friendly, young people - and the food was outright excellent. It was absolutely worht the extra few hundred euros for this cabin.

Before landing, we fly right over the Argentine city of Mendoza, which lies just east of the Andres. Then came the Andes range - it was simlpy amazing, the view of 6,000 to 7,000 meter-high peaks. Everyone was glued to the windows. I even think to have spotted the statue of Christ the Redeemer of the Andes, which is a statue at the pass between Argentina and Chile at 3,832 meters. I interpreted this as a sign - you see, I had a secret plan to make this crossing, visit Mendoza and then head north from there and cross back to Chile at another (even higher) pass.

Mendoza

Christ the Redeemer of the Andres in the middle

Andes range

Close to the airport, I was looking at the roads, long, straight sections headed towards the mountains, full of large trucks and lorries - and these roads would turn curvy within the mountain ranges.