Somebody had to write about it. Air travel is not quite like it used to be. I remember reading years ago in Reader's Digest or some such popular periodical that air travel was one of the most stressful things that you might face in life, particularly if it wasn't your normal as it is for business and internationally oriented people. And now, travel in the time post-covid, well hang on tight cause this is a story with a twisted ending.
As I tell my teens planes don't wait for people, people wait for planes so don't be late! And being late is just one of the stresses, getting there, will my taxi come on time, will there be traffic, an accident, roads closed (for my trip the question was a day before to get to the full day's bus ride in time, would there be landslide blocking the road), will there be a queue at check in, for immigration, for security, do I really not need a visa? Do I have correct documents, is my passport 6 months valid, do I need a return ticket, is my baggage overweight, will they check it through (I am usually travelling multiple airports, multiple stops).
AND NOW, add to the list, do I need a P*R neg test, 24, 48, 72 hrs in advance, even if I have a vaccine card? Do I need a vaccine certificate? Do I need any of these if I am transiting? What if my transit is more than 12hrs, 24hrs... jayzus christmas... do I need to be masked, will there be food on board, will there be ham, will there be spam, Sam I am, green eggs and ham.
It has become a tad ridiculous. I'm not your virgin traveller though I felt a bit like one getting on my first flight in 18 months to travel from Ecuador to Switzerland this past week. Thank goodness most restrictions have been lifted, back in January I was not allowed into the airport in Guayquil to see my son (who is a minor) off back to Switzerlandia because I had no vax cert back then, even as omi*ron was proving to be contagious for everyone vaxxed or not. Masks were everywhere back then as well, and that still persisted through this flight, from Guayaquil to Panama but then to Amsterdam and to Geneva the masks well they just disappeared as if a higher sense of savvy descended as we crossed the great ocean Atlantic.
Who is right about the mask mandates? Ecuador? Switzerland? Who can say? Who was ever right about anything on this crazy ride we have been on. At Schipol airport I ran into a Swedish friend who I'd met in Lebanon in 2010 (the way you do), he had come through from Argentina to Amsterdam multiple stops en route to Spain and nowhere had anyone asked him for anything. He had spent $400 making sure he had all his Co*id duck-uments in a row for nothing.
And then what happens, I arrive in Geneva, reunite with my kids, and the next day, sitting out in the belting down northern (pre-solstice) sunshine at their school fair WHAM... it hits me. Fatigue, skin hot to touch, chills and headache...sounds like a touch of the sun right?... Ouch. On the second morning I connect with my travel companion who also lives in Vilcabamba and went from Amsterdam to Portugal to see how she is doing and lo and behold she has the same symptoms and these are the same as her husband had the week before! Not heat exhaustion after all. A virus, which after 3 days is completely gone.
Did you ever wonder what happened to all those viruses during this past couple of years, influenza A and the myriad other bugs that people got in different parts of the world. Yeah me too, seems they all got re-branded as Co_id doesn't it? Makes you realise how we have been led down the proverbial garden path, well different paths depending on your country though with the convergence in many cases with stricter laws and fewer freedoms and more power in the hands of the fewer. I'm not really liking that, and not really sure it is a coordinated conspiracy in fact I'd be mighty impressed if anyone could get the likes of Vlady Putin, Xi Ping, Modhi and Biden to party together, but it is mighty curious and more than a bit disconcerting.
The war in the Ukraine, is either a big red herring as the ramp up for the next big virus scare gears up (ever heard of monkeypox? see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil.... ;-)) or it is the gross manipulation of a megalomaniac as the media wants us to think. Has to be said though it too is quite curious in terms of strategy. Did Putin really expect to 'take Ukraine' just like that and that Western Europe would just bend over and take it graciously?? Or has it been an expensive sabre-rattling, a reality check to send a shiver of fear down the spines of Europe as a kind of show during the intermission while we wait for Virus Act II?
Fear seems to be quite the thing these days, the media has figured out that it sells, maybe even better than sex. Certainly they got it, the minute the word 'pan*emic' was uttered back in April 2020 the media seized on the idea of 'panic' Did you ever seen anywhere (except my FB posts) anyone shouting that the pan in pan*emic does not stand for panic!? And Panic they did...Wham bam airports closed, and masking and lock down mandates spread faster than the bad smell that still lingers over the whole thing. Ironically rather than stay in place expats the world over were ordered to get on that last flight out and come home, so much for flattening the curve and preventing the spread. Bad smell bad smell bad smell.
Anyway, at the risk of losing more friends than I already have, I want to leave you with this. I didn't have covid, never have had, not symptomatically at least through all this time. What I suffered this past few days went through me the same way it went through 3 or 4 people I know in Vilcabamba, and none of them tested +ve. Ironically in all this time NO ONE can tell you really how many people have had Co*id because so many were asymptomatic, so no one can say if the vac*ine worked or not. NO ONE can say yet if the vac*ine has or isn't going to cause more health problems and lose more lives than it saved NO ONE will say how enormously damaging the impact of lockdowns a strategy designed to protect rich countries has been on impoverished countries. NO ONE will admit to the huge impact these strategies have had on mental health and well-being, domestic violence, suicides, and social stagnation of young people. Will ANYONE agree that the media has done a huge disservice to humanity in selling fear rather than providing balanced news and views about a global phenomenon.
What we can say is that the division amongst friends and families that the discussion has created is highly disconcerting. We can say that until we stand together and look at what happened taking a step back and being real and critical together, only then might we see what has really happened. I am lucky here, my new housemates get it, they are in the minority, they get that I don't have Co*id, and that even if I did, as for millions, it isn't the end of life or the world or anything, it is just a bad flu. Travel in the time post-co*id? Go for it while you still can!
