It's a glorious summer evening in Chile, and the view from the Holiday Inn Santiago Airport is – well, the airport, of course, but in the distance the snowy Andes peaks are blatantly showing off in the low sunlight. Time for a relaxing evening of doing Carnets, editing a few thousand photos, staring in disbelief at my gravity-friendly array of hand baggage, and trying to find something to eat. Being in Chile, a chilli would appear to be favourite; I'm not holding out too much hope for the hotel restaurant, although the menu claims there's "micro brew beer" (which probably means American Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, but it's better than nothing...)
Most of my shipmates are on this evening's flight to Miami, and thence to various bits of North America; there are only two or three others heading for Europe tomorrow, and I think they're in different hotels, so I have a good excuse to be anti-social for a while. My flight to Madrid is tomorrow afternoon, assuming that they don't take one look at my baggage and transfer me to a cargo plane...
It's kind of a wrench having to leave behind the best place in the world – stunning beauty, amazing wildlife, indescribable emptiness – but great to be heading back to the best things in the world – family, friends, Harvest Pale Ale. In a piece of highly fortuitous accidental planning, I'll get back just in time for Mia's Christmas performance and, as an added bonus, the start of the first Test match. Splendid!
