Triphap - Funny Travel Stories and Travel Horror Stories

I couldn't help but feel a twinge of disappointment when I saw the itinerary for our journey home to New Zealand after three years of missionary service in South America. This time, we were not doing the long haul flight from Buenos Aires to Auckland –all fifteen hours of it, broken only by a brief halt in Patagonia. Instead of heading to Argentina after leaving Bolivia, we would spend the night in Santiago, Chile, then fly via Easter Island to Tahiti, where we would spend a few hours before catching the connecting flight to Auckland. If we'd timed our flight for another day, we would have spent an extra day in Tahiti. Oh well. At least stopping to refuel Easter Island would be interesting.

The flights from La Paz to Arica to Santiago were pretty uneventful, with no dramas over passports or visas... unless you count the aftershave my father had stowed in my cabin baggage (his was full) leaking and a small child in a seat near mine throwing up and getting some on the pink straw hat I had put on the floor temporarily. So we boarded the Lan Chile flight out of Santiago breezily with our carry-on luggage in hand (mine was held at arm's length - by now, it smelt of a combination of aftershave, vomit and the ham sandwich I had put in it as a snack at the start of the voyage).

We had flown for about an hour over the Pacific Ocean when the announcement no traveller wants to hear came over the intercom, in Spanish and in heavily accented English. "Ladies and gentlemen, we are experiencing technical difficulties and we will have to turn back to Santiago. Please remain calm, but stay alert for further announcements."

The plane swung around and headed eastwards again. The hospitality crew looked unconcerned – apparently, this sort of thing happened several times a month – so I only felt slightly worried. A woman nearby was white-faced and clung to the seat arms, especially when fuel started being jettisoned from the wing engines. But we reached Santiago again with no further announcements.

We were told that we would be put on the next flight to Tahiti via Easter Island - which flew out tomorrow morning. In the meantime, the airline would put us up in a pretty good hotel overnight. What's that? You'll miss your connecting flight out of Tahiti and will have to wait an extra day and a half for the next connection? Then the airline will pay for you to stay overnight in Tahiti.

The overnight stay in the Santiago hotel allowed me to jettison that ham sandwich and to sponge the vomit off my pink straw hat, so I was able to wear it while I spent that extra day in Tahiti, lounging by the hotel pool. It only smelt faintly of aftershave by this time.