As if mandatory, strict, no-exceptions-for-exercise, 15-days-extended-to-28-days quarantine isn’t enough, it’s tough being stuck indoors all day with nothing more than what’s in our backpacks, and wasting time desperately hoping for a promising embassy update which never comes. Whatever is happening behind the scenes in our public service to make their Peruvian repatriation efforts so embarrassingly mediocre must be nightmarish.
For the record, because even our Prime Minister has made noises to the contrary, Australia’s “do not travel” advice came days AFTER the sudden Peruvian lockdown took effect. That lockdown was announced out of the blue, when Peru had few covid cases and there were no countries in the whole continent that were taking any substantive steps in response to the pandemic. We were diligently keeping abreast of travel advice and global news, but there were no signs that travellers in the region should be abandoning their trips and heading home, which is why so many travellers became stranded in Peru. Many other nations have repatriated their citizens from Peru, often at no or low costs.
Meanwhile, you can enjoy the wet lettuce leaf communications on the embassy’s Twitter and Facebook pages; it’s so regrettable that we scroll social media a million times a day in hope for more, but this is all we get. The only option to get back to Australia that has been offered is a AUD$5,160-per-seat private flight by Chimu Adventures, which was only offered to those in Cusco and Lima, and which soon sold out. There are hundreds of Australians who are not on that flight. For them – for us – there are still no options to get home. It’s soul-crushing to maintain hope that the government is working on helping us. Unbelievably, 13 days into lockdown, there are still no options.
Still, we’re grateful for what we have: nice accommodation, a day or two longer with our lovely friends before they fly out, a fridge full of delicious cheeses, access to books and other entertainment, and regular catch ups with friends and family. We appreciate this is such a challenging time for so, so many people in myriad ways – so please don’t let my monologue above make it seem like we think we should be the centre of the world. We know we’re not, nor should we be. We’re enormously privileged. I just have day-13-itis and feel extremely powerless, and feel hamstrung by my expectations of consular support. Forgive me.
VRPS
[Lima]
The Two Swords 