7 days, 7 cities, 6 countries, 3 continents
As I went over the flight options for my first trip to South America in 2014, I ended up booking a return flight from Bangalore to São Paulo. I didn’t realise at the time of booking this flight that I would have to make my way back to São Paulo to fly back to India, which would cost me both time and money. This is the story of how I ended up across airports in 6 countries because of this mistake.
In South America, I landed in São Paulo, and after my volunteer stint in Brasil, I proceeded to backpack across Bolivia, Colombia and Ecuador. In the last few days of my time in South America, I was in Quito and had to get to São Paulo for my flight back to India. As a result, I took a bus back from Quito to Bogota (this 22-hour ride was probably one of the very few times I was actually scared of being robbed). After a night in Bogota with a friend, I took a flight to São Paulo with layovers in Cali and Lima. This stopover in Peru was the only way to go there since the embassy didn’t give me a visa during this trip (and was the only saving grace till I actually made it to Peru 2 years later). Once I landed in São Paulo, I had 20 hours to kill, and having no money left after a 4-month trip, I decided to skip going to the city and spent the time at the vast Guarulhos airport. The flight back from Guarulhos to Bangalore was via Dubai, and so this last week resulted in me spending each night of the week in a different city –
Friday in Quito
Saturday in Bogota
Monday in Cali
Tuesday in Lima
Wednesday in São Paulo
Thursday in Dubai
Friday in Bangalore
Was this tiring? Yes! I slept for like 5 hours in the 6 nights till my flight back to Bangalore. I can never sleep on planes, but due to this lack of sleep, I passed out on the 15-hour flight to Dubai, and it remains the only time I’ve ever slept on a plane (I was up for almost 60 hours when I flew from Bangalore to Porto Alegre at the start of this trip). I was quite surprised to see that we were only 2 hours from Dubai when I woke up, but I was happy to have not missed any meals because I quite enjoy the whole experience of eating on international flights.
Would I do it again? Probably yes, but maybe spend some time outside the airport too (and keep a small budget for that). It definitely makes for an interesting travel story!
