One hour until boarding. It is sticky-humid hot. The person on the seat behind me is kicking the lounge and the vibrations are coming through. Not far away is a mother trying to feed a baby that doesn’t want to be fed.
The airport is crowded. A flight is just leaving for LA & Paris and huge crowds are moving to the gate. An aircraft has just pulled up outside and the noise is deafening before it kills its engines.
So far the majority of the holiday has been on a plane, going to a plane or waiting for a plane. Transport will continue to determine the agenda until we reach Lima. We have a stop in Santiago, but it is 12 hours between flights. Too long to stay at the airport, but it means we will only have about 8 hours at the hotel. This will probably be spent sleeping.

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I am sitting on the larger of the two balconies of our two storey room at the Radisson Plaza on Lafayette Beach. We left Sydney yesterday on 1 April and arrived here on 31 March. That International Date Line really plays with your mind. That’s OK, on the way back we lose a day.

We don’t even expect to be here for 24 hours. We arrived about 2200 last night and will have to leave by that time today, as the plane leaves at 0030 tomorrow. It is a pleasant break in the journey and makes the timing of our South America flights just right.
The beach is less than 50m from our room. It is dark black volcanic sand and very steep. The waves break about 20m out and crash into nothing with a huge boom.
The water is very warm, and coconuts line the beach where they have washed ashore. Although we could have gone on a day trip today, we decided not to. We ate breakfast at about 1030 and went for a walk on the beach. It is a warm day and the humidity is high. Such is life in the tropics.
We shall sit, relax and read, wasting away the day, trying to adjust our body clocks until the flight to Chile.