Friday, January 10th, 2025

When we had booked it, in October 2023, our trip to Antarctica was, as Pink Floyd so aptly put it “distant ship smoke on the horizon”. So despite my only reservation about the whole thing, that I would spend days and days on a boat in what people kept telling us (and sending “helpful” articles about) were the stormiest seas on the planet, it was still a long way off.

I should perhaps explain at this point that the sea is the ONLY thing that causes me any disquiet. It always has. It is not fear, as such, more of a gnawing anxiety. I do not even like to look at it. Suffice it to say that, although I could comfortably swim two kilometres, being dropped into a cage with a hungry tiger would be mentally preferable to being dropped into the sea a half kilometre from the shore.

Living in England, the only way to get to most places is to cross the sea and I have done so scores of times – but on a ferry. I usually go inside and refuse to look out of the windows. The British are, supposedly, a sea-faring nation, but if it had been up to me, we would never have found France, let alone New Zealand ! It HAS got better over the years, but the underlying anxiety is still there. I have to admit that I take no joy in the sight of even the bluest, calmest, sea.

As they say, “that was then”. The “this is now” part occurred when I woke up on a cold, dreary morning in January knowing that the day had finally come. It was still before 5 a.m. and as black as the Ace of Spades both inside and outside of our apartment. It was only a few days since Lucie had removed her customary array of Christmas lights that had kept the bosses down at Prague’s Electric supply company dreaming of bumper profits and I made my way very cautiously downstairs. It was at this very point, in 2023, as the date of our departure on our New Zealand trip arrived that, despite my cautious descent of our stairs, I stubbed my toe on the bottom step so hard that it eventually turned blue. The Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu once said “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” – it is pity that, in his wisdom, he did not add “But make sure you can see where you are going”. Anyway, on this occasion, I did manage the stairs unscathed.

Because our first flight, to Madrid (where I wrote this) was not until the early afternoon, we had time to kill, which actually meant time to start fretting. Thanks entirely to Lucie’s hard work, all the stuff we needed was laid out on the table in our apartment. Lucie packs what I call “Motorcycle light” and although I knew she had comprehensive lists for all our travel “modes”, there did not seem to be very much stuff. When we weighed them, our two rucksacks each weighed seven and a half kilograms – but, of course we had just over an additional three kilograms of toiletries and electronics in a little hand-bag. A quick bit of juggling was required to ensure that neither exceeded the ten kilogram limit for hand-baggage on our various flights when the small bag would be placed into one – and was skilfully achieved. I could easily lift one in each hand at the same time.

We did all the stuff you need to do when you are leaving your home for a month, had a final coffee and off we set into the great unknown. The tram, metro, trolleybus combo took us swiftly and easily to the airport – in less than one hour, door to long queue for security.

In truth, the security check for us was easy, it was, as always, the checking of the baggage that took the time. Of course, dressed for adventure, as we were, it did entail a considerable amount of disrobing. We had five trays of stuff for X-ray, but we still made it through in far less time than most of our fellow travellers did ! Can those people not read at all ?

Lucie checked that I had done my boots up properly. When we went to New Zealand, I did not retie them, resulting in a fall on the jetway, a twisted ankle and my second blue bruise of that day, this time on my head ! Then we sat down to wait. Nothing more to say, anyone who has ever flown anywhere will know this bit.

No member of airline staff as much as glanced at our rucksacks which were, in truth, smaller and certainly lighter than the more “standard” bags of most people. The flight took off exactly on schedule and, apart from one short period of turbulence, lacked drama of any kind. To avoid carrying a lot of books, we had both invested in an e-reader and I was pleased that, despite my love of “real” books, l found mine easy to use and the time whizzed by. A three hour, 1,752 kilometre, flight sort of vanished and I did not, as I usually do, fall asleep.

We even landed twenty minutes early which was the proverbial “two edged sword”. We were already facing a layover of five hours and this made it even longer ….. I have been in a lot of airports and Barajas would not even make my top one hundred. Confusing and soulless, in this case, are its GOOD points.

After what seemed like an eternity, our gate for Buenos Aires was finally displayed and we shuffled off for the twelve hour, inter-continental flight.

As the take-off time was at five minutes to midnight (there is a Czech “saying” about that !) it rounded the day off nicely.

We hoped the following day, in Argentina, would be a bit more interesting !