They call the flight from Australia to South America the timeless flight.

You fly out of Sydney and arrive in Santiago, Chile three hours before you've left Australia. For me it was a time to have a good hard look at where my Spanish was up to and how I was going to get by living in a completely different world for five months...

I flew out of Adelaide at 7:20 AM on Sunday morning, leaving the familiar surroundings of the land I grew up in for the suburbs of one of South America´s largest Metropolis´ Lima, Peru.

Upon arriving at Sydney airport from Adelaide and waiting in the departure lounge I got a slight taste of the linguistic troubles ahead as there were primarily Chileans boarding the flight across to Santiago.

Throughout the flight I was seated next to an elderly Chilean man named Hihiñio who turned out to be a pastor from the Seventh-Day Adventist church in Santiago. He had just finished a three month stint working for various Spanish churches in Melbourne and Sydney. He spoke broken English and thus we managed to get by with only minimal difficulty.

Hihiñio opened my eyes to everyday difficulties South Americans face with poverty and corrupt governments and he told me how lucky I was to have grown up in a world where these weren't issues.

He believed strongly that Australians in general had largely chosen to forget God because of their financial status and relatively low unemployment rates, whereas in his sub-continent the situation was different and people prayed in masses for a better life for them and their family.

Throughout the flight Hihiñio would have moments of inspiration where he would preach to me...

"Today, h´all we see is bad news on ze televisioñe, bad news on ze radio and er bad news on the internet. Well my son I have some good news, Jesus has arrived".

I wasn't sure if Jesus had arrived but my flight certainly had, I was finally in Santiago de Chile.

I had seven hours to pass in the Santiago airport.

For most of that time I felt like Tom Hanks´character in ´Terminal´ just walking around making myself at home. With my ever handy Lonely Planet Latin American phrase book I managed to change some US dollars into Peso´s without embarassing myself and buy a bite to eat at `Dunkin Donuts´ (Chile´s version of Donut King).

On a full stomach I decided to settle for a rest in the airport waiting lounge. Four and half hours of solid sleep later and I was ready to take the final leg of my journey from Australia to Lima, Peru.

On the flight from Santiago to Lima I found myself sitting next to your typical South American muchacho... Dark tan, slick hair, shirt half buttoned up, legs flung open with the occasional scratch of the balls. Yep, he was exactly the kind of guy you´d have seen in the travel movies about South America. I shied away from trying to start a conversation because I assumed he could only speak Spanish.

Three hours later and we'd almost arived in Lima.

However, I still had to fill in my arrival form for Peru and there was one problem, I didn't have a pen. I reluctanctly looked over and asked the man for a pen in Spanish "Boligrafo, Señor?".

He looked back at me as if I was a complete idiot and said, "Sure dude, why didn't you ask for one earlier on?". Turns out he was a Chilean businessman who worked for Coca-Cola and had spent many years living in California. Didn't I feel like like the down-right fool.

However, I´d made it to Lima without losing any luggage, my passport or being mugged. It was a huge success by anyone's standards. Now, armed with a my phrase book and a tolerance for awkward situations I was well and truly ready to begin my work as a volunteer in Lima.

Jesse Doyle
International volunteer

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