A storm had arrived during night in Montevideo with lots of high winds as well as rain.
The apartment owners opposite were out early taking in their washing.
Breakfast was the same sad fare and I stuck with cornflakes and toast. I had decided to avoid any of the so-called hot food on our last morning.
Our expedition voyage on Hurtigruten’s MS Fram would take us from Ushuaia to Antarctica, to South Georgia, around the Falklands and then onto Montevideo.
Thursday the 16th March was our last day in the Southern Hemisphere. We were leaving Montevideo for our flights to Madrid and then Gatwick.
Leaving Montevideo
Our driver for the airport was waiting early for us at 8.30. While we waited for the others to come down to reception I dashed out across the road to have a look at the sea crashing onto the promenade.
The drive to the airport was much further than we thought it would be. We passed the beaches, the Montevideo sign from yeaterday and carried on past even more high rise buildings. Eventually these gave way to houses in various states of repair from the run down to having gate guards outside mansions.
To liven the journey up we passed a fender bender . . .
… and then to my chagrin a magnificent mural of a whale with a girl swimming alongside on a wall way above the road.
Montevideo airport
Checking in and security were much less stressful than expected and we hoped that our seats at the back of this plane would have space above them. While we were queuing for check-in we were joined by passengers with two dogs in large cages.
We picked up water and the 600ml bottles of water were a mere 3 US dollars in the shop airside.
Boarding was at at Gate 1/2 which gave us a great view of the Airbus A330.
The queues for the different parts of the cabin were separated from each other and once the early boarding passengers were on the plane we were next as we were at the back.
Long flight from Montevideo
The cabin did have some empty seats but in our row of four seats two of the A/V screens were broken!
As the plane began to taxi we could clearly hear the dogs barking and howling below us in the hold.
There were a lot of children on the flight and it was my bad luck was to have one directly behind me. After take-off the Captain didn’t turn off the seat belt signs because of the turbulence. When the lunch service started the turbulence became worst. Then the cabin crew had to keep reminding everyone to stay seated. This didn’t seem to impact any of the passengers walking around the cabin. The turbulence became so bad that service was stopped for over 15 minutes.
Seat changing by now was becoming the norm as passengers tried to find A/V systems that worked. My iPhone earphones didn’t work in the A/V system and I had to request help. Absolute classic response was ‘What you want?’ from the cabin steward. But what can I say as he did bring me some Air Europa headsets that did work in the socket?
My seat back continued to receive its fair amount of kicks and I decided that alcohol would be the best resort.
Lunch was served at 3.30 pm and then at 6 pm we had a sandwich thrown at us. We added wine and even more beer to the ‘meal’. The eleven hours to Madrid dragged with the turbulence, the screaming and worse of all my seat back being used as football.
Not quite the end to our adventure that we would have planned!