Lan Chile Redux

If I have one piece of advice for you it is to order your plane tickets well in advance. A month ago I had the chance to purchase tickets from Santiago to Buenos Aires on Air Canada for $170 round trip. But I was in too much of a hurry to buy them right then, I kept promising myself I would get around to buying them but alas no. I didn't. Desperately I searched the internet last week for cheap fares and the cheapest was Lan Chile.

You'll recall my mentioning Lan Chile on my trip to Antofagasta. My cousin flew them, and said the service was absolutely barbaric. She complained about the food, the flight attendants, the delays. I could believe the delays, but now I got to experience the rest for myself first hand.

My experience was different. There was no delay despite the fact we had a very full flight. Mostly full of seventh graders from Saint Martin Colegio in Buenos Aires. I had Geronimo and Herman sitting next to me. I had the window, as the cordillera past by beneath, the plane occasionally broke into song, imitations of Homer Simpson, or other seventh grade shennaigans. It made me miss my kids.

While the flight attendants were slightly friendlier, the cold sandwich dinner (salami, so if you are Muslim better order ahead) and dulce de leche, really didn't cut it. The insane duty free cart was more of an annoyance than anything else, but it might explain why the flight attendant were nicer (annoyed passengers do not buy duty free on planes).

The bumpy landing in Buenos Aires reminded me of a strange habit that I've only seen Argentinean do. They applaud wildly when the planes lands, now is that just Argentine, or do other countries do that? I know that in Chile when I applaud on landing I get very strange looks.