When we decided to travel via London to get to South America we had no idea how complicated it would be. A combination of heavy snow in the UK, a strike by Spanish air traffic control and an impressive electrical storm here in Rio meant we were very lucky to complete our journey with a delay of only about 3 hours and no delay at all on the trip to London. It could have been an awful lot worse.
When we booked 2 months ago to go to London we chose Stansted instead of Gatwick. That was the first piece of good fortune as Gatwick was closed by snow on the thursday that we travelled.
We got out just in time because the strike started on friday and stopped most planes to and from Spain.
Luckily by saturday night the snow had stopped in London and the Spanish government had forced the air traffic controllers back to work by declaring a state of emergency and effectively putting them under military control. As a way of making things happen (or happen faster) in Spain this seems to open up endless possibilities. We might be able to get the car ownership documents we have been waiting for for 6 months, the certificate of house completion (nearly 5 years) or even get served a pina colada in Zensa beach bar in less than an hour.
As for landing at Rio we narrowly avoided being diverted to Sao Paulo but by the time we landed many streets had turned into rivers and there was traffic chaos. Nevertheless we got here and now the South America trip begins.
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