Waiting

I got to the airport this morning three hours in advance as requested. The woman at the check-in desk was reluctant to check me in but did so eventually, and I went through to the gate. There was no-one else around. In fact there seemed to be very little point in being so early, as when I asked  if I had a seat on the flight I was told shortly they would not know until the flight had ‘closed’. In other words, shut up and sit down. So I did.

I had my laptop and the Easter Island book and so the time passed quickly. The seats around the gate filled up as the departure got nearer. I got to see the air hostesses doing air hostess stuff, which seemed to involve a lot of counting pieces of paper. By 12.50pm, the same time as when I arrived at the airport yesterday, the flight had still not closed, and I wondered if maybe they could have rushed me through yesterday if they had tried.

Myself and a crowd of other people on standby were gathered around the desk as the last of the passengers went through, rather like we were begging for something, and being mostly ignored. There was an older woman with what looked like two daughters and two grandchildren waiting there also. The older woman was talking to the LAN staff and I don’t know what the signal was but all of a sudden she started to roar and shout and occasionally screech. I thought I was an angry crazy person in the boat in the Galapagos, but this was the game played at a much higher level. She shouted – almost screamed – over and over about the same thing, pointing at her watch, saying something about ’15 minutes’ but I couldn’t get any of the rest. The woman on the receiving end reacted with superb grace under fire. She didn’t raise her voice at all. I couldn’t understand anything she was saying, but she was calm and composed and if I had a company of my own I would hire her in a second.

I didn’t think that the woman’s shouting boded that well for my own hopes of departure. Earlier a young lad of around 12 or 13 was boarded, hugging what seemed to be his father goodbye, and I guessed he may well be the only one plucked from the beggars. I quietly asked another LAN lady if I was going to get on, and she said I was not. I asked her also what the woman was screaming about, and it turned out that she had been supposed to get a flight yesterday but missed it because the motorway was closed. I said that sounded annoying.

It took quite a while to get my luggage back, then I went back to check in yet again and get a ticket for tomorrow, and that’s when the wheels damn near came off the whole enterprise. There was a very long line and I stood in it patiently and read the Easter Island book, and the thought idly crossed my mind that maybe I would have been better getting a confirmed seat for tomorrow instead of a standby seat today, but I thought little of it. Then I heard a very familiar howling and wailing of protest from one of the check-in desks on front of me. That, I thought, cannot be a good sign. And a slender thread of dread suddenly caught around my throat. The Antarctic part of this voyage is the jewel of it for me, and it seemed suddenly at real risk.

I got to the desk and explained myself and the guy looked at his computer screen and said that both flights for tomorrow were full. I had to work to remain calm. Tomorrow is Sunday the 13th of February, and Monday the 14th is the first official Antarctic day, but we don’t actually leave until the 15th, so I figured I could still get a flight the day after tomorrow. I asked him for one then instead.He checked and there was only one flight and it was full.

I emitted a long, low, drawn-out ‘Noooooo’, a stretched and unpleasant sound that I don’t think I have ever uttered before. He tapped at his computer. I took out my South America guidebook to see a map to try and find somewhere at least in the southern region to fly to. I looked at the distance from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia and wondered how long it would take on a bus. From conversations I’ve had I was guessing several days.

Then from nowhere, the chap behind the desk said he had got me a seat on the flight tomorrow. He didn’t speak very good English, but he said ‘There are no seats but I got you a seat.’ I think he saw how unnerved I was, and there must be some sort of stock of emergency seats maybe. I thanked him very deeply and the relief bubbled up and made me smile.

The flight is at 5am so I will not get a lot of sleep, and indeed it is hardly worth getting the hostel. I am sitting here now crossing my fingers that nothing will go wrong. I have just checked and the bus from BA to Ushuaia takes 50 hours. If I could leave this afternoon I would just make it in time; tomorrow will be too late. So say a little prayer that everything will go well for me, and tomorrow I will be safely in Ushuaia.