Well, here I have been complaining that I don’t get to travel much anymore, I guess someone must have heard me! Last week I did Iceland, Canada, Bermuda, Aruba and Peru!!
Unfortunately I did not get to see much of any of the places. The reason for my travel was to follow the delivery of tents, blankets, tarpaulins and heaters for the victims of the earthquake in Peru and the reason for all the other stops was that we (me and a colleague) were flying with the cargo in an old Antonov 12 and that plane can not fly too far without filling up on fuel. So the stops on Keflavik, Gander, Bermuda and Aruba were really short and we never left the air field.
The flight took some 27 hours and I can assure you that the comfort of an old Soviet-built air craft from the 60.s is not too great! It is cramped, extremely noisy, shaky and a bit dirty. Of course there is no air-con and the temperature varies greatly with the surrounding. They had a heater and when they turned that one on it got extremely hot. All the security facilities that they remind you of on a regular, commercial flight felt like a joke in this environment, and there were no other facilities either, so those quite frequent fill-up-stops were good for other urgent matters too…. At least we had seats, not very comfortable, but still. And our Ukrainian crew was all gentlemen and let me have two of the four seats. They even provided me with a blanket, a pillow and a box next to the second seat, for me to lay my feet on when I tried to get some sleep. My (male) colleague did not get that kind of extra attention… The worst thing on the trip however, was the fact that all the seven guys in the crew were chain-smokers and were constantly smoking in the plane. And as airports normally are non-smoking areas they stayed inside the plane and smoked even when we were not flying. Normally most planes are of course also non-smoking, but if you have your own plane of course you do as you like.
However, after 27 hours, one rather scary take-off (at Bermuda) and one harsh landing we arrived at the military air field in Pisco, Peru at ca: 02.00 at night. The plane got unloaded quickly and our Ukrainian friends took off again for Brazil and new adventures. We now had to work our way at the airfield that was opened only to receive humanitarian cargo. Fortunately we meet a major in the air force who took kindly to us and let us stay in the military quarters. I got a mattress on the floor, which was perfectly fine for the two-three hours we could lay down; we even had access to a (primitive) bath room!
The next day was full of work, trying to get in touch with the right people and organize a good hand over of the stuff, which worked well. We were also taken thru the disaster area, which was a very depressing sight, I don’t think we saw one single house that was entirely undamaged and most of them were completely destroyed. We were also taken to a tent camp, similar to the one where “our” tents will be put. There the situation was a little more hopeful. Of course it is depressing when you consider that these poor people have lost everything, but the camp was very well looked after and they had kitchens and “bathrooms” and they tried to create some activities for the children so it looked ok. In the afternoon we finished the administration and then we were basically done. We had planned to try to get on a flight and leave Pisco on Thursday morning, but all of a sudden an opportunity opened for us to catch a lift by car to Lima all ready on Wednesday night, and as we had nothing more in Pisco to do and staying on actually only meant a further strain to the already scarce resources we left for Lima, where we arrived at midnight. I don’t think I have to tell you that I appreciated an extra night in a hotel! I even skipped eating, although I had had nothing apart from a “self heating” military ration of ravioli, I just had a hot shower (It was very cold) and then went straight to bed.
We coming to Lima one day earlier also meant we actually could have a whole day in Lima! We had made contacts with a Swede living in Lima for a long time and he and his Peruvian wife kindly took us on to a market where we could see and buy some handicrafts and also drove us thru the centre of historical Lima, so at least we saw something of it. We even managed to drink a pisco sour and eat cevice before leaving for Europe again on Friday, so I feel I got something from Peru with me, accept for sleep deficit, a sore back and tragic pictures of devastated houses. It is a bit frustrating to have been to a country that has so much to see and have seen nothing, but I will just have to come back under other circumstances. The same goes for some of the places were we landed on the way, especially Bermuda or Aruba! I feel I need a real nice vacation on an exotic beach somewhere this winter. Anyone wants to join me??!!
The most memorable thing that I have with me from this trip is actually all the nice, kind, helpful and caring people that we met!
I will post some pictures later, but now I will have to sleep. Tomorrow will be a busy day in the office.
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