The long journey home

Funny to think I used to write so frequently. It feels like it’s been forever. It like we’ve been in an oarless boat on a very slow-moving river, knowing we have to get to the destination eventually, but being powerless to get there faster. We have just had to be patient and let time pass. And enjoy the ride as much as we can.

The journey from Lima to Melbourne – door to door – took 33 hours. We got picked up from our Airbnb (hours later than we were told the bus would come) and taken to the Lima military airport, where we were sat on plastic chairs under a makeshift tent as our “boarding passes” were scribbled out by hand.

Our first flight was to Iquitos- north of Lima – to pick up those in the isolated jungle city which cannot be reached by road. We sat on the tarmac for a painful three hours, waiting for those people to board.

We had a two hour stop-over in Santiago, where our plane of Peruvians joined up with another from Cusco, and other Australians in Chile. We flew through a very, very long night, touching down at 3 am (Melbourne time). We were fortunate to be seated four rows from the front of the start of economy. Even being the early ones off the plane, it still took three hours to go through health checks and various stations dedicated to different parts of our mandatory quarantine. An hour of that was spent on the bus outside the hotel, waiting to be allowed in.

We finally got to Room 914 – a corner room with two big floor-to-ceiling “windows” (is it a window if you can’t open it to get fresh air?) at 6 am, and in this room we have stayed for fifteen days. Our only reprieve has been a couple of ten-minute walks in the few hundred metres outside the hotel. The guards for our fresh air break outnumbered us.

What’s quarantine life like? I fast developed a finely-tuned ear for the gentle rustle of paper outside our door, indicating that someone was placing our next paper bag meal there. A minute later, we’d get a knock telling us it was ready to collect.

We weren’t charged for food and board, so I won’t complain as if I was a paying guest. However, if the government was taking a look at whether our hotel was delivering what the government was paying for, I think they’d find discrepancies. Wifi hardly worked, generally breakfasts were sugary and many other meals didn’t even seem to try to hide the fact that the caterer was pocketing huge profits.

But we were cared for by the hotel well enough – except for a few middle-of-the-night nurse check-in calls that wrecked our sleep (“No, we don’t have symptoms, why are you calling us at 3 am to ask?”). And family went above and beyond, and then even further beyond that, to care for us. I can’t find rich enough words for my gratitude. Your check ins and things you delivered us made the world of difference to our experience.

What was our experience? If it was a montage, it would be little clips of the following:

• Rearranging the furniture to make exercise space
• Laying out the sarong on the floor and then setting out dinner as a picnic
• Yoga in the morning
• Puzzles
• Making milky chai teas five times a day
• Regularly ordering more milk for aforementioned teas
• Spicing up plain leafy salads with goats cheese
• Dan playing chess while Viva studies
• Viva getting weirdly obsessed with solitaire, especially when she realises she can play while listening to lectures
• Dan using his suitcase as a workout weight
• Yoga in the morning – but this time with a yoga mat!
• Video and phone chats
• Someone retreating to the bathroom as a separate sound space when we’re on different calls
• Watching lots of Vivir Sin Permiso (Spanish TV show)
• Watercolouring the colouring in book
• Viva getting excited hearing the paper bag rustle
• Dan practising the uke (and nailing it)
• Dancing to beautiful Cuban salsa music – which also makes us a bit sad as we’d love to I be listening to it live
• Daily rounds of Yaniv (card game), with Dan exercising whenever it was Viva’s turn to shuffle and deal
• The muffled sound of the Southern Cross Station announcements from across the road
• Taking turns reading books on the Kindle
• The one time we got Uber Eats just to get delicious, Aussie coffees (and some bagels, while we were at it)
• Getting through four boxes of kiwi fruits (long story)

These five-and-a-half lockdown weeks have been hard. I am just so impressed that for someone so outdoorsy, Dan has endured this challenging quarantine period so admirably. He’s the best company and I’m so grateful we’re in this together.

Sometime after midday today, we get processed and transported to the airport. We’ll be home in Brissie tonight, in the fresh air, mask-less, and in the (appropriately distant) company of family. We’ll be back in the land of sun, incredible coffee, and permission to exercise outdoors. We’ll see what happens next.

VRPS

[Melbourne]