Transit

I know that writing about my flights doesn´t make for the most exciting reading, but this one was so classic I had to share. Leaving floripa in the evening I expected to be in Salvador just three hours later, after one connection in Sao Paolo, picked up at the airport by friends and driven to their home. Nothing simpler, right? Well at check in it turns out the first flight is an hour late, which leaves me fifteen minutes to make my connection, never mind getting my luggage on that plane. However if I miss it they´ll give me a hotel and fly me in the next morning, so I decide to go for it.

The plane finally arrives an hour and a half late, and then we sit in it for at least another 45 minutes, so all hope of making the connection is gone. I am resigned to a night in sao paolo, and just hope I get my bags. We arrive and Sao Paolo and, lo and behold, my connecting flight is delayed too- this might all work out! Over the speakers I hear- final boarding call for Tam flight for Salvador! I rush through security, cut in front of everyone, muttering in english that my plane is leaving, and charge to my gate, to join about a thousand other delayed commuters milling about in confusion. People are asleep on the floor, under the stairs. One frantic woman starts yelling and tries to hit the security guard, to everyones great amusement. Again elbowing to the front, I get the attention of someone offical looking and they say my flight wont be leaving til 2 am. Oh. Well, that means my bags will probably make it. I settle into a chair and watch for three hours as the room fills and empties with poeple catching their delayed flights. Finally, its about 2 am, the room is almost empty, and there has been no mention of my flght. I wander over to the official and show him my boarding pass. Oh your flight is boarding right now at gate 5. Damn. About ten of us all figure out at the same time we are about to slip through the cracks, so we rush through the airport to gate five. Nobody there but someone eventually tells us- no its gate 7. More stampede. At gate seven all is quiet but the plane is still there. Relieved we board and then strangely wait another hour before leaving. It seems like I can finally nod off and wake up in Salvador, but when the engines start to rev we discover that the superstitioius grandmother in the seat in front of me has never flown before and is convinced we are all going staright to hell. She moans and cries "oh meu deus!, oh meu deus!", for the next two hours, while her daughter and the stewardess stroke her hands and she refuses the medication they offer her. When I get off the plane in Salvador, the sun is rising, my bags do in fact show up, and of course my friends are nowhere to be seen. Nevertheless, I´ve made it to Bahia, and I´m excited.