Entries about vaccination

Just a little update...

It was going so well, or as well as can be expected.

Firstly, Mum is ok, thanks for all the best wishes and love, it was amazing. She's still in hospital and getting better far too slowly for everyone (including her), but she is slowly on the mend. She'll be inside a while.

Some amazing looking hotels here

So I arrived in Mexico last Saturday and treated it like a bit of a holiday. Cancun is great, lots of beaches, lots of stuff to do, (very) hot weather and I found a fantastic AirBnB here with a hot tub on the roof. Bliss.

Enjoying said rooftop hottub

I spent the first half of the week chilling out and visiting attractions. I went to a water park, drove a speedboat out to the coral reef and snorkeled, did the wheel, aquarium, that sort of stuff. It was all going well. Also, the wifi here is much better, allowing me to video chat with Mum and family and friends. All I had to do was sit here, drink iced coffee and wait until I leave next week.

And then of course everything went to shit.

The UK Government is making Mexico a red country from Sunday, so I need to leave. I'm not even sure if what I'm doing is right, but it's what I'm doing. I'll have a week saved of 'amber' and then add an extra four days in America before I fly home. The problem comes if they decide that because I have been in Mexico in the past 10 days and it'll be red by then so it counts as red, then I'm screwed.

The lizards here are funny looking too

I've tried Citizens Advice, The British Embassy, online, even Simon Calder and no one can tell me definitively if what I'm doing is right. In my mind I will not have been in a 'red' country for more than 10 days so that's fine. If the customs people disagree though, it's worth nothing. It's all just so confusing and I only have myself to blame for it all, travelling right now is bonkers as I'm sure many others have also found out. It's worth pointing out though, that by the time I get back to England, I will have not been in a red country for 12 days and will have had 2 covid tests in the five days previous. What more do they want??

The only upside is that I've chosen to spend my four days in Orlando, where I can do Disney for a couple of days! I love me some Disney and even visiting there in the middle of a hot pandemic summer with packed out parks is better than no Disney at all. Hopefully it will make the four flight, 28 hour plus journey worth while!

I've never stayed at a hotel with a pig in it before!

I wrote that last night... Then came to bed to discover my flight to Orlando had been cancelled. It was no big issue really, I had another flight booked within 20 mins, but it was still stress. Just like today when I tried to book a car and a couple of tickets to Disney only to discover my bank card has been blocked for the fifth time in as many weeks and I'll have to wait until the morning to unblock it. Seriously Nationwide, could you be any more incompetent? I'll be shutting that account down in a week. Finally, I realised I had forgotten to book my US Visa (ESTA), but again, it was done in under half an hour. Phew.

Still, it's a fair representation of this entire trip. At least it's given me something to write about

I arrived at my hostel in Quito tonight at 10pm, some 3 hours after I was supposed to have arrived. How did this happen? Well let me tell you.

Most other parts of the travel were fine. I left Colon this morning, grabbed a bus to Panama city where I got the Metro train as close to the airport as I could, for some reason, neither of Panama City's two metro lines actually stop at the airport! I had to get the train, then jump in a minibus for a dollar to the airport.

The airport was great, only really two things of note. Firstly, the vaccinations worked a charm. Instead of paying out for a PCR test now twice, I have only had to show my vaccination details, saving me at least £100 - £150. Great.

Secondly, Panama City is the only airport I've been to where they don't sell cigarettes in the duty free! These weren't for me, I don't smoke (more on that in 10 days), but I was looking to see how much they were for friends. Nope, none at all that I could find. I looked online and apparently they don't sell them there!

Anyway, on to the flight, nice little 90 min trip. All was good until at about 300 ft the pilot decides that it's not safe to land. This is now the third time this has happened to me in three years! First in Istanbul where the pilot pulled up ten feet from the ground and then in 'Sarf'end a couple of years back where we had to loop round as he arrived at the landing strip too fast.

Beautiful Ecuador

This time was pretty scary though. Ecuador is stunning from above, low clouds over volcanoes and mountains, deep cracks in the ground where earthquakes have pulled the country apart. It looks amazing, but when you want to land on a runway 3000 meters up in the mountains, it can get a bit hairy!

Out the window photography

We flew around for about 30 mins after that, when the pilot told us that we were being diverted to Guayaquil, a town some 250 miles SE. This much to the annoyance of the old boy sat 2 seats away from me. We landed there fine, refueled, waited for some news or idea if we'd be staying there the night or going back. After a while apparently the wind died down and we flew back, landing in the dark with no issues at all.

I don't know what part of my body is in this cack handed shot!

It wasn't the scariest flight I've ever been on, I'll give that to the Istanbul flight, but it was up there! Any safe landing is a good one, but three near missed in three years I could do without!

Oh P.S! Quito is bloody cold!! Back to jeans tomorrow!