I depart Tarapoto today....

But not with such happiness after Viva!Air charged me 72 soles to print my boarding pass at the airport!! That's almost as much as I paid for the whole fare and it only took them 30 seconds. Then they also tried to slug me for my backpack which they wanted to put in the hold (I've always carried it on board with me and pointed that out but they insisted it was over-sized until I proved it wasn't by forcing it into the steel cage they use to gauge the dimensions. It's still a cheap flight but it rankled a bit with me to have to pay for a boarding pass. I hope I don't have to go through the same insane procedure at Lima when I check in for Santiago in two days. I'll be checking before I get to the airport in case I have to get my ticket printed in advance somewhere.
Friday, 29th June 2018 in Sydney.
Well, as you can imagine, I've hardly had time to add to the post I started in Tarapoto at the airport and here I am in Sydney already!! Thankfully Sky Airlines were kinder than Viva!Air and didn't charge me any extra for printing my boarding pass or for luggage - for a budget airline I thought they were at least as good as a full service carrier. You pay for extras such as food and drinks on board but not at unreasonable prices and the club sandwiches were nice and fresh. Arrived into Santiago in the afternoon and checked into my Airbnb close to the airport and struck up a conversation with a young woman from Argentina who was returning from her 1 month holiday in Europe and also just overnighting close to the airport as she had a 6am flight the next day. She wanted to do some shopping and the hostess recommended a shopping mall not far from the Airbnb so we shared a taxi to there and arranged to meet up for something to eat in two hours time. The mall was huge and modern - bigger than any I've seen in NZ and on a par with Miranda Fair in Sydney - the Supermarket section was the biggest I've ever seen and even sold a wide range of tyres!! Imagine putting a few of those in your shopping trolley with your groceries!! I wanted to buy a neck pillow and slippers for the long flight back to Sydney but the only neck pillow I could find had children's motifs on it so I gave that a pass!! I did get the slip on slippers, though. 
The thirteen hour flight the next day to Sydney wasn't too bad - the noise cancelling headphones and a heap of new albums I downloaded on Spotify along with a sleeping pill made the trip a pleasure. I probably slept or dozed for at least six hours but the passenger in the seat behind me was a pain, playing the drums on my seat back a couple of times while he listened to his own music. I warned him once and he desisted for an hour but the second time he started up I threatened to have him removed to another seat in the plane if he kept it up. For a man in his mid twenties I was surprised he could be so inconsiderate (but you get the odd imbecile like that on some flights!!).
Today is a beautiful sunny day in Sydney after rain yesterday and I remembered why I loved the climate here so much - even in winter it's a joy to be here!!
Ruth and Cam's Au pair arrives from the USA on Monday, so I'm looking for a car with auto transmission today as they struggle with Ruth's Mazda which is manual shift - she prefers the manual shift but the Au pairs struggle with having to change gears AND drive on the "wrong" side of the road while they're here. I'm pushing for a low mileage Peugeot as they have the best ANCAP safety ratings!! No more to post at this stage so I'll publish this now and MAY get one more in before NZ.

I'm pleased to say I managed to  avoid something like this!!