Travel Diary - Day Five

Day Five

To say I’m running on empty would be to put it mildly. Here’s why.

Last night I left for the airport at 2pm to be in plenty of time for the flight. Actually the taxi arrived 20min early and I had only just finished packing my stuff and moving it toward the door. Nothing like cutting things fine. The taxi trip was fine and then the story really begins. I went up to the counter to check in my bag and after a couple of minutes of playing around the person on the counter told me that I couldn’t travel because I didn’t have a visa for Trinidad. What!!! That’s not what any of my information had been. They were really friendly and helpful and spent quite a lot of time trying to confirm what they thought and looking for ways around it. In the end they refused to let me on the flight and thus began a day of phone calls – I have racked up in the vicinity of $NZ200 in phone calls today – just as well CWM have said they are paying!! But then I would have had to do it anyway.

The first thing was to go back into town, find somewhere to dump my bags, rest for a couple of hours and then get to the NZ Embassy. Found a youth hostel in the centre of the downtown area that had a room and got there just after 4am. Crashed for 3 hours before getting up, having breakfast and heading off to find the consulate. Breakfast was cornflakes and milk. Sounds innocuous enough until you realise that the cornflakes are coated in sugar and the milk is more like NZ farm milk, also with a liberal dose of sugar. One of the most sickly breakfasts I have ever had. I forced it down because I didn’t know how far I would be walking or when I would eat next.

Went to the subway and caught the wrong train – still confused by the signs – got on the right train and emerged in a part of the city I had seen briefly on the bus tour but was completely disoriented. Spent the next 20 minutes trying to figure out where I was, walking in an expanding circle. Finally found something I could identify on the map to realise that I was twice as far away as when I had come out of the subway. To make matters worse, just as I was nearing my objective, still looking completely confused with my map out a friendly and very helpful gentleman offered to help and gave me directions to the British Arts Centre, then took me there in person, in exactly the wrong direction. Fortunately the centre wasn’t far and so once I realised the mistake I only took a couple of minutes to retrace. From there it was about 200m to the target.

The people at the Embassy, Angela was who I was dealing with, were unfailingly helpful, although it was a little disconcerting to be left on my own in the lobby for nearly half an hour without explanation before she appeared with the information I needed. We went through everything and she went off and got several more bits of info before sending me on my way. Getting back to the hostel was easy and soon I was heading for the phones. By the time I have called the travel company multiple times – about 6 all up I think, Ruth twice, once to moan, once to give her a much more positive update, 4 to CWM numbers in London and several to local numbers I had certainly racked up the phone time, and the bill.

In the end I returned to the airport and spoke to the people in the airline office. They began work and after a conference that lasted for nearly half an hour they came out and told me that everything was under control, that they would put me on the next flight and there would be no cost to me. They gave me window seats and paid for my taxi back into town and the return to the airport and have organised a chit to pay for my airport tax. And in every way they were unfailingly polite and friendly.

I got back to town, more phone calls to sort out the next stage of my trip from Port of Spain to Georgetown, something for lunch that I didn’t really feel like eating – a huge and very nice but completely unwanted omelette (actually I think that was before I went to the airport the second time), something for dinner I didn’t really feel like eating – this time a ham and tomato roll with ham that was unlike any ham I have ever eaten and I’m not that keen on trying it again either.

Somewhere in there I organised to withdraw lots of pesos and change them into $US, a quite bizarre process that required using two different banks – go figure. I needed the $US to show that I was not going to cost the Trinidad government anything for my stay (of a whole 10 hours). Now that everything is organised properly I have a little under 4 hours at the Port of Spain airport and the whole conversation has been rendered completely unnecessary. Never would have picked that one eh!

So the taxi driver picks me up for the airport – 20 minutes early again – just as I am about try to track down where my final ticket arrangements from Trinidad to Guyana (which is pronounced here as Weeana). Since I am leaving early I’ll get to the airport with time to spare and I can use the communications centre to chase up the ticket and print out the result. No problem J.

The plane is packed and the queue is miles long when I get to it, so I decide to write some of this while I’m waiting (notice the change in tense). Unfortunately the queue is only getting longer so I decide that I’m going to wait in the business queue. They have someone checking people’s credentials to make sure they don’t cheat. Turns out I’m special – not business class L but special for all that. So I get to go nearly to the front of the queue, which makes me feel a little embarrassed for all those who are waiting patiently in line, but then I justify it with the thought that I’ve waited a whole lot longer than they have. Actually that doesn’t work for me very well but it’s as good as I’ve got. Anyway, the girl at the counter makes the comment that they’ve all be briefed about me and she does a fine job of sorting me out, evening putting my bags in the priority queue so they come off the plane quicker – a subtle benefit when I just have to wait another 4 hours for my next flight but there we go. And I got my leg space too – major bonus on a packed flight!!

The rest is pretty uneventful really. Wander through seeming miles of empty space to get to each of the various immigration and bag checks, through seeming further miles of perfume, makeup, expensive (majorly) bags, clothes and chocolates to sit and wait in a lounge that isn’t actually too bad. In fact I would rate it rather well. And the café does an ace hot chocolate!

So I think I’ve had about 6 or 7 hours sleep in the last 60, but I’m feeling OK. Looking forward to arriving in Guyana. I don’t think I’ll be overly sociable when I get there, but actually despite the frustrations, and upsets there have been a bunch of good points too. When I was feeling quite down about everything earlier in the day I kind of mentioned to God that it would be quite cool to have a decent conversation in English. On the way to the airport in the afternoon I was with two Australian guys from WA and we had a great conversation about travel, cricket and life in general. Then on the way back from the airport my driver was a brand new Christian. When he found out that I was a Christian he excitedly told he was too and put on a CD with a whole bunch of Hillsong United songs in Spanish that he wanted to sing with me, he in Spanish and me in English. Nice. And the taxi driver on my final trip back to the airport couldn’t speak English but promptly offered me some sweets, and when we arrived at the airport insisted that I take the rest of the bag. He hardly said anything but he was really good to just be around. I’d like to be like that some day.

Well, I’m about done for now. I’ll fire this off and I expect by the time that’s done we’ll be boarding.