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Published: June 16th 2005
It was Helen´s idea that I do this travelblog thingy. I found this website pretty easily. All I needed to set it up was an email address, a name and a nickname. First two I already have, but I don´t think anyone really calls me by a nickname anymore. I´ve had to resort to the name which the boys in my class at All Hallows referred to me by amongst themselves when we were about 13-15: Beamish. It refers to my forehead, which used to be a bit shiny for some reason - must have been a teenage thing. You could also have called me "Shiny" at the time, which has a certain simple elegance, I think. I very much hope that doesn´t stick when I get back, though. Please still call me by my actual name, I´ve only done this because they asked for a nickname.
Anyway, this travelling business that I´m doing. Well, it´s going OK so far, in that I´ve taken three flights and by some fluke haven´t been shredded to smithereens once.
Of course, when the alarm went off at 4am I did think that this was all a very stupid idea and why don´t I just stay in bed for a while longer and then maybe do some nice things in London a bit later and not worry about the watsed money on flights/vaccinations/etc. Got over that eventually.
I sat at my seat (12F - remember that) on the concourse at Heathrow for a good hour before take-off, and as a consequence had to sprint through Frankfurt airport to my Caracas plane. I made it; sadly my luggage didn´t. It´s joining me in Cusco tomorrow morning, where I have to meet and greet it at the airport. It promises to be a emotional reunion, as I´m quite cold and would very much like my warmer trousers and longer, cleaner socks. I´ve checked my insurance, but despite it´s being "premier", there´s no compensation for this and an excess of 40 squid if I buy anything I´m missing. I´d have to get a lot of shampoo and socks before I reached that, so I´m making do like a trooper.
When I saw my seat (13F, and just to ruin the suspense, my flight from Caracas to Lima was also 12F - I´m a 12/13F kinda gal) on the Caracas plane, my heart sank, as my neighbour was a small child and this was a ten hour flight. Little Rasmus, or however, was an absolute delight, however. We shared no language, but he cried not once and was gorgeous when asleep and when watching Donald Duck. There was another, considerably less cute and considerably fatter, child on the row in front who did have a bit of a penchant for shouting. We had not one shout from Rasmus and when he did just once begin to make a small squealing noise, mother Carmen put paid to it deftly. Carmen also invited me to stay in her family home on an island off Venezuela, but I couldn´t because I was going to Peru, but she says I must email her and she will put me in touch with her nieces and nephews for when I´m back in Caracas for four days in August. Very kind.
So, ten hours is quite a long time. I had my travel pillow for napping. This has been an excellent purchase. It is extremely hard work to inflate, leaving you exhausted, so you never regret doing it. There were three fils showing. The first one was clearly crap )Rasmus turned his nose up at it) but I tuned in anyway. Not only was it crap but it was dubbed into German with no subtitle, so I went back to my book and the papers (I´ve completed four so dukus, two of them rated "difficult", but no cryptic crosswords). A few hours later, that film I think is called "Hitch" with Will Smith (for whom I´ve had a soft spot ever since the Bell Air days) and I thought, oh, what a shame it´s in German and therefore I can´t watch it. Of course it wasn´t this time, which I discovered about half way through, and fortunately it wasn´t too difficult to deduce the plot from this stage.
At 4.20 GMT, the migraine vision struck. Will Smith´s left shoulder became obscured by my flashing lights in my eyes (real shame, though his right is better anyway). Interesting case this, in terms of the search for a cause of my migraines. Sleep deprivation - which has always been a key trigger for my demi-genome-sharing brother - could clearly be involved. Knowledge of imminent death, perhaps, though that´s never been a factor in earlier migraines I don´t think. No red wine the night before, though some sparkling. But here´s something - cheese. I´m flying Lufthansa, so breakfast was a cheese sandwich (guess I was lucky not just to get a whole salami), lunch involved a triangle of camembert and afternoon tea was another cheese sandwich (this time on a flat dark bread not a role, which presumably counts as variety for the Germans). I like cheese, though, so I won´t be giving it up. Dinner, incidentally (incidentally because dinner arrived after the migraine had been and gone), was macaroni cheese.
The migraine didn´t materialise into agony, just contributed to my general feeling of malaise. When we landed in Venezuela, people clapped. I´ve never flown long-haul before - is this normal?
I had a Long wait at the airport for my flight to Lima. I used my first bit of Spanish - "Voy a Lima". I don´t know what the man said in reply, but his hand gestures were spot on.
In London the day before, I´d had a long list of things written on my hand that I thought I need to do/buy before leaving. I had failed with almost all of them, including the purchase of a notebook for writing a journal in or whatever. Bill spent ten minutes in the evening looking for one he thought he had which would be suitable, but couldn´t find it and I said "Don´t worry, I´m sure they have paper in South America". Well, turns out they don´t. At least, not in the part of South America that I was not allowed out of for 6 and a half hours yesterday, that being the post-security bit of Caracas airport. Nor do they have internet, or I´d have done this instead. So I walked up and down, I slept sprawled over my rucksack (for security purposes), I did so dokus, read my book and walked up and down more, though my bag was very heavy. This was rubbish.
By the time I boarded my Aeropostal flight to Lima, I couldn´t quite be bothered to think about how I was going to be shredded, even when water dripped onto me in my seat, thus proving that there were holes in the fabric of this plane so death was all the more certain.
I marked the been-up-for-24-hours-now point with a polo mint and by resetting my watch from London to Lima time. This felt like a big deal. There were English girls of about my age in the seats over the aisle. I made no effort to demonstrate my own Englishness or to talk to them. Dinner arrived - no cheese, oddly - and there was salad, which I thought I´d better not eat in case it had been washed in dirty water. Then, a few minutes later, I ate it. I also realised there was ice in my orange drink, another no-no, I believe. Then my stomach started hurting. (Am not ill today though.)
Filling in forms to do with my missing bag took an age at the airport, then my driver, Juan, took me to the hotel. Not so long ago, I bought some shampoo (we´re at about 60p so far, not looking good for the 40 quid target) and had a shower, which was great.
I think I´m being taken to the airport again in ten minutes, so I´d better make some effort at arranging accomodation in Cusco...
I´m sure this thing is and will continue to be liberally peppered with spelling mistakes. Sorry about that. That word just before meaning place where you stay, for instance; don´t know how to spell that. In my class, X1, in 3rd year at All hallows, we measured our spelling ages, and mine was about the same as my real age, whereas Krysia was about 45 or something.
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Sarah Samworth
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Did you see last comment?
Hello Beamish! Did you get my last comment? Was soooo long but think maybe it didn't show coz I wasn't registered - boo. Travel safe and keep blogging, last one made me laugh out loud in the office! Love Sammie x