We have been flying over Brazil for the last three hours. We left London around 10pm. Now it is 5am in Santiago and 9am in Scotland. In the last few minutes we changed our course from South to Southwest and begin approaching the Cordillera central. The plane, a Boeing 787, entered South America between Guyana and Surinam, and now we are leaving Brazil between Paraguay and Bolivia. Below us, the previously flat land gives way to the wrinkles of the Cordillera, which raises high up with mountains that reach 3000m but retain the modest name of Cerros, which can also mean hills. We are flying at 12,500m a.s.l. making sure we are well above the highest peaks. It’s now about 6am. We are in Bolivia, flying above places like Sucre, Tomina, Potosi, Turuchipa, Yura and passing more “hills” such as Cerró Tazna (5,800m), and heading straight to other cerros: Huanchaca (5,950m), Tazna (5,805m), Chorolque (5,614m). When we finally enter Chile, the salt plains start showing up in the map. It’s nearly 7am when we cross the Atacama desert and, soon after, the sun appears in the horizon. It’s finally daytime in the Southern Hemisphere. We will soon land in Santiago.
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