In Bolivia I thought that Santa Cruz was a farily sizeable place, but if it is then you would never guess it from looking around the airport.
When I first realised what I had done in chosing such a long delay overnight I thought that it would be terrible, then I remembered that Hong Kong at night was almost as busy during the day and certainly from what I had seen in Brazil the latino's are no strangers to allnighters either, so I was almost looking forward to it in a warped kind of way.
However when I touched down I should have done a quick reccy and decided if it was worth wasting 12 hours of my life to just lie in the airport with nothing to do but rest paranoid that at any moment so silent light fingered thief would steal away with some of my belongings and I wouldn't find out til I got to Peru.
My fears got slightly les then I realised that I was indeed the very only sole in the airport who was dumb enough to decide to stay there overnight and so as normally the chances of their being anyone here overnight for a pickpocket to rob was virtually zero I doubted that any bother to turn up just on the off chance.
In this bizare safety in lack of numbers I rested on any set of seats that I liked, often lying across a set of four and chosing a different set every few hours to break up the boredom.
Before they all closed I managed to buy a packet of skittles and a doctor pepper, and so I did my own version of the scene where Tom Hanks is trying to make a packet of ketchup into sandwich and I don't think a packet of skittles has ever lasted me as long or tasted so sweet, rolling them around on top of the packet before selecting one and after giving it a close inspection seing how long I could suck it til the sugar coating cracked.
Boring well yes no doubt, but considering it was this or, um, nothing, I feel that I actually got quite inventive with my mind games. The place was too small to spend much time looking at, and although I could have tried to do some circuit training and aerobics in the deserted hall I wanted to conserve as much of my energy as I could as I will be arriving in Peru at the start of the day and I would hate to waste the first day just sleeping to regain my strength from a nighttime workout.
During my more paranoid moments I managed to strap myself into my rucksack flush against a wall, with all the zips and locks tight against a wall, and using my jacket as a cushion and my travel eye mask actually managed to get a bit of sleep, til the unconfortableness of the floor woke me, when I thought blast it, if it gets stolen it gets stolen, and just retired to a much more confortable position on top of a row of chairs and dozed for a few hours.
Although the place was deserted from passengers, that is not to say that there was nobody about, as there was always someone deciding to stroll through the hall, be it a security guard, cleaner or just the guy who came to retop up the coin operated bubblegum machine.
However despite my overnight vigil as I wrote this there seemed to be a huge rush for the queue to check in and thus I was at the back and for a second I thought that I would be left behind, awith memories awash with reading that they regularly overbook these flights.
Luckily this was not the case this morning and everything was fine.
I had to grab airport tax which was a con as this place is tiny and was only a stop over but hey ho, off to Peru we go.
When I first realised what I had done in chosing such a long delay overnight I thought that it would be terrible, then I remembered that Hong Kong at night was almost as busy during the day and certainly from what I had seen in Brazil the latino's are no strangers to allnighters either, so I was almost looking forward to it in a warped kind of way.
However when I touched down I should have done a quick reccy and decided if it was worth wasting 12 hours of my life to just lie in the airport with nothing to do but rest paranoid that at any moment so silent light fingered thief would steal away with some of my belongings and I wouldn't find out til I got to Peru.
My fears got slightly les then I realised that I was indeed the very only sole in the airport who was dumb enough to decide to stay there overnight and so as normally the chances of their being anyone here overnight for a pickpocket to rob was virtually zero I doubted that any bother to turn up just on the off chance.
In this bizare safety in lack of numbers I rested on any set of seats that I liked, often lying across a set of four and chosing a different set every few hours to break up the boredom.
Before they all closed I managed to buy a packet of skittles and a doctor pepper, and so I did my own version of the scene where Tom Hanks is trying to make a packet of ketchup into sandwich and I don't think a packet of skittles has ever lasted me as long or tasted so sweet, rolling them around on top of the packet before selecting one and after giving it a close inspection seing how long I could suck it til the sugar coating cracked.
Boring well yes no doubt, but considering it was this or, um, nothing, I feel that I actually got quite inventive with my mind games. The place was too small to spend much time looking at, and although I could have tried to do some circuit training and aerobics in the deserted hall I wanted to conserve as much of my energy as I could as I will be arriving in Peru at the start of the day and I would hate to waste the first day just sleeping to regain my strength from a nighttime workout.
During my more paranoid moments I managed to strap myself into my rucksack flush against a wall, with all the zips and locks tight against a wall, and using my jacket as a cushion and my travel eye mask actually managed to get a bit of sleep, til the unconfortableness of the floor woke me, when I thought blast it, if it gets stolen it gets stolen, and just retired to a much more confortable position on top of a row of chairs and dozed for a few hours.
Although the place was deserted from passengers, that is not to say that there was nobody about, as there was always someone deciding to stroll through the hall, be it a security guard, cleaner or just the guy who came to retop up the coin operated bubblegum machine.
However despite my overnight vigil as I wrote this there seemed to be a huge rush for the queue to check in and thus I was at the back and for a second I thought that I would be left behind, awith memories awash with reading that they regularly overbook these flights.
Luckily this was not the case this morning and everything was fine.
I had to grab airport tax which was a con as this place is tiny and was only a stop over but hey ho, off to Peru we go.
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