Day 1 – travelling

My oh my. What a day that was. In fairness, it didn’t start well. A week of trying to get everything off my desk before departure finished at around 10pm with my final invoices being emailed off. I then spent 2 hours packing – which Rob Frearson will tell you, having lived through it when we did Base Camp – is a bit like Groundhog Day… the same thing, just repeated many many times with just the odd change each time! Climbed in to bed at about midnight, spent half an hour going through the list of ‘what ifs’ with Polly – ranging from simple stuff like “what if the door falls off the fridge again” to “what if I miss you so much it hurts to go on & I just need to be with you”. All of which I feel I dealt with very well, if not in a rather ‘male’ way. Except the latter of course, which I made up.

Alarm went off at 2am. Taxi (annoyingly) arrived at 2.40am – 20mins early. The reason for this became apparent a little later, but for the time being the subtlety of the driver stading by the open car boot with the engine running at this unearthly time of the day was sufficient to persuade me that we would be leaving early. One by one my boys appeared from their bedrooms all bleary eyed to hug & kiss before I left – except Jake of course who had to be poked several times, only to then arrive at the top of the stairs naked as the day he was born, tackle gathered in to his left hand. I expressed my disappointment that this would be a vision that would travel with me throughout Peru – not a particular welcome one at that – so he disappeared & returned wearing a pair of pants. Far better! Finally it was Polly’s turn & after a passionate embrace similar to those you see on television where everything goes blurry & an orchestra plays softly in the background. Polly had had the good sense to be clothed for this.

Goodbyes all done I went next door to get John while the taxi driver put my (light) bags in the car. I would point out at this point – particularly to all those that gave me such a hard time on the Base Camp trip (but ate through my 10kgs of Mars bars anyway!) that my bag was 16kgs first time. Bang on! Even I was impressed – & I could see the taxi driver was!

I knocked on John’s back door (ooer). Waited. Went round to the front. Knocked. Waited. Knocked again. Then I saw him coming to the door. It had obviously been a great surprise to him that someone should be knocking on his door at that time of the morning – I know it would have been for me. I waited while he unlocked the 9 locks on his front door, took his bag off him, then he went back inside & locked up again. I’m not quite sure where he went then because 5 minutes later we were still waiting for him to reappear – I wondered whether he’d gone back to bad, but no – we heard the 9 locks being unlocked again & out he came. It was time to go! Next stop Mike’s house to pick up him & Ruth.

It wasn’t long before we were on the way to Birmingham Airport proper – Mike took a minute or two to put the finishing touches to his make-up before we left, but we were soon away. It was at this point we realised why the taxi driver had been so early. His grasp of the Leicester roads – whilst very thorough – was not what you’d call very direct. He had obviously left in good time to complete the hour long journey from his home in Thurmaston to Bushby. I think he was probably allowing good time too to get to Mike’s house at the end of the road should we need to go via Syston. It was a very strange journey – but we were in good spirits, now we’d finally departed – so it didn’t seem to matter.

Birmingham Airport uneventful really. We had some breakfast amidst the hardened holiday makers consuming large amounts of beer & Guiness nearby (how do they do that at 3.30am?!). Mike seemed temporarily distracted by the lady with the soft poached eggs…

It wasn’t long before we boarded – & imagine our delight when the well-oiled (male) holiday makers (with their heavy Brimingham accents) sat directly behind us & entertained us with their extensive knowledge of British profanities throughout the entire hour & a half flight to Amsterdam…. need I say more?!

A 4 hour wait at Amsterdam for our linking flight to Lima passed pretty smoothly. We were worried that John had perhaps developed a weak bladder since our last excursion as he kept disappearing for quite long periods of time. Then we discovered the fact that he’d got a free pass to the Executive Lounge, where everything was free. This explained everything! Still, he very kindly bought us out a biscuit each 🙂

On to Lima then! After some seat shuffling with some German ladies who’d taken a fancy to our seats, we got ourselves bunked in ready for the 12 hour flight ahead. As more people embarked we noticed that there were quite a few young families, but didn’t really pay any attention… until the crying started. An hour in to the flight the crying was still going. It was like the children had some telepathic tag thing going on – baby in blue starts… passes to young girl in pink… passes to irritating boy in blue… passes to baby in pink… it just went on… & on… & on…

Even my noise cancelling in-ear earphones were struggling to cope with the level of noise. In the end, the choices were (a) grin & bear in, (b) walk around the plane in a continuous loop for the next 12 hours as (strangely) the other end of the plane had no children in it – just a man with the loudest snores IN THE WORLD (said in Jeremy Clarkson voice), or (c) insert earphones, turn up the volume & watch 12 hours of films.

I went for (c), with a light smattering of (b) purely for the amusement factor. But I gotta tell ya, on the face of it 12 hours of films sounds great – possibly even a glimpse of heaven – but the reality is very different. By the end of the flight my head was pounding – I think I’d even have put up with the mouths on the Amsterdam flight over the sound of childrens & babies screaming & crying for 12 hours! We were all left completely dazed by it.

I’ve got to share this with you too – this was my view for the entire time I was seated. I can’t tell you how tempted I was to get a marker pen! It was probably the strangest head I think I’ve ever seen – & all his wife kept doing was stroking it! It was like watching a giant sunrise, that never actually rose. A marker pen would have enabled me to be creative & create a Chad saying ‘wot no sunrise?’. This is how desperate things had got. I’m convinced I would have gone completely mad if I had spent one more minute on that plane!

An hour then through Immigration Control – during which we mostly just stood looking dazed, & of course grateful for the ‘silence’ – we emerged to a mass of people waving boards with names on. I mean a real sea – there were hundreds of people. We found our guy & went & waited while he gathered 2 other GAP adventurers – Fiona & Maddy. Don’t know anything about them yet, just that they seem very pleasant & are both young. I wasn’t feeling very talkative as I was so tired (which I know many will find hard to believe, but it’s true!) but John didn’t seem to be affected by tiredness & had recovered from the whole crying thing so very amiably chatted away. In the bus on the way to the hotel there were a few cries from John of ‘oh, I’m sorry, I thought that was my rucksack’, but I didn’t turn round to see what he was up to!

A delay of about an hour before we could get in to ours rooms (the power had gone off in them & they were trying to repair it) meant that by the time we actually got in to out (powered) rooms, we had been on the go for about 26 hours. Although our watches said 10.13pm, our brains said 4.13am… time for bed!

Peru is 6 hours behind the UK, so as I sit here writing this, just before going down for some breakfast, my watch says 8.05am – 2.05pm with you guys. I’m not sure what the schedule is for today at this stage – I know actually start proper today, but I’m not sure what time. Hopefully we’ll get to see a GAP rep after breakfast.

OK, signing off then for now. Catch up with you later.