Fear of Flying
After three hours on the ground in Arequipa, the captain made the decision
to push on to La Paz. We hurried back onto the aeroplane, out of the
cold, and the bitter wind, once more setting our minds to the modern
miracle of air travel.
However many times I fly, I will always have
a nugget of deep mistrust about the whole operation in my mind, usually
somewhere near the front, but which can generally be worked to the
back, depending on the quality of the company, the in-flight movie,
the thickness of my book. I am unwilling to be completely convinced
by something which seems so eminently illogical. But like the bee,
we stay in the air - most of the time - so I hold my tongue, and
still my mind.
We taxied down the runway in Arequipa, past the burnt-out
hulls of aircraft, pushed to the side of the airfield, their cabin
mouths gaping open, as if in surprise. As we waited for clearance for take-off,
I watched a mother and three small children cross the field from left
to right, pushing a cart piled high with empty soda bottles. We turned
onto the main runway, and began to gather speed, watched with disinterest
from behind a low wall at the side of the field by a group of nut-brown
women in colourful skirts who are spreading their laundry to dry on
bush-tops at the periphery of the airfield.
As the engines began to
scream and the wheels bumped the last few feet along the ground, we
pulled upwards, and headed for the sky. I watched the receding dusty
earth below, and caught a brief glimpse of a solitary black dog taking
a shit beside the runway, watching us, puzzled but calm, as we receded
into the clouded sky.
Dropping off
By this point, I was finding it more than a little difficult to keep
my eyes open. I found myself tumbling in and out of that unique kind
of unexpected doze which you only experience on forms of public transport
- the kind where you feel yourself keeling forwards a millimetre at
a time, as your chin drops to your chest, having only closed your
eyes to blink, lulled into a sleepy state by the rhythm and idea of
motion. And then, mere seconds later, you awake with a guilty start,
unsure of whether moments, minutes or hours have passed, and determined
to keep awake. You strain to keep your eyes open, as they roll in
your sockets, as if you are drunk or insane, unable to focus or gaze.
I remained in this state for an hour or more, unwilling to miss any
of the glimpses of the Andes which were revealed by occasional breaks
in the thick cloud. I woke up considerably when I realised that the
shining expanse of blue over which we were passing was not any sea,
as I had unconsciously assumed, but was in fact Lake Titicaca.
Lake
Titicaca. The very name has a kind of magical quality about it. It
is from the realm of geography lessons and Trivial Pursuits. And there
I was, flying above it, marvelling at the expanse of shining blue
water, dotted with delicate islands, calm as a mirror. I turned to
find a fellow passenger watching my excitement with interest. The businessman
from the conversation on the airfield had somehow installed himself
in a neighbouring seat, and now looked on my thrilled expression with
some amusement.
To mask my excitement, I pointed out of the
window and asked ‘El Lago Titicaca?‘. He leant over me to peer out of the tiny window, smelling of of old alcohol, musty clothing and travel. He nodded, adding ‘Cuando
hizon la frontera, nosotros peruanos ganamos el Titi - los bolivianos
ganaron el Caca - When they made the border [through the lake]
we Peruvians got the Titi - the Bolivians got the Caca’. The fat businessman
chuckled, and his chin wobbled. I turned back to the window.
Landing lights
Fifteen minutes later, we were circling over La Paz. I saw the city spread
out before me, like a minutely stitched blanket, only realising as
we came in to land that what I had seen was only the outskirts and
shanty-towns of the neighbouring city El Alto. La Paz itself
lay in the canyon, according to the guidebooks. The airport was on
the Altiplano, half an hour from the town.
The plane gradually decreased
altitude, and the engines began to whine in the thin air. We passed
through pockets of turbulence which seemed to grab at the plane in
descent, juddering the whole body. Holding onto the armrests, and
the meagre contents of my stomach (a desolate in-flight breakfast
of coffee and peanuts) the businessman told me that landing in La
Paz was extremely dangerous, which is why only certain aeroplanes
could do it. Because of the thin air, he explained, tyres could burst,
and special fuel was needed, or else there could be an explosion with
the merest spark.
It was with this thought in mind that we
hurtled towards the ground at great speed.
Kissing the tarmac
We landed, safely, and taxied a short distance before coming to a complete
halt. The cabin doors were opened and I collected my hand luggage. My heart began to beat faster - I could not tell if this was from
the altitude or from sheer anticipation. I jostled with the other
passengers to make my way along the narrow aisle and out of the aircraft.
As we left the plane, the steward wished each person a happy stay, and reminded
us to visit Peru again. My mind was elsewhere.
My thoughts were with
the low grey buildings, set against a low grey sky, at the perimeter of the airfield.
The airport looked like a construction site from our position about
half a mile away.
The air was crisp and, descending the stairs, I
fancied that I could taste the lack of oxygen. But, much to my disappointment, I did not
feel radically different. I had expected
that stepping off the plane and onto Bolivian soil would feel like
Amundsen reaching the Antarctic, Tensing’s first foot on top of Everest.
But instead, I felt tired and grubby and homeless. At
the bottom of the stairs, I stepped onto the tarmac, which felt cold
and hard, like the tarmac had done in Manchester at the beginning
of the journey. Rain started to spit down, as it had done then (was
it only two days ago?), but this time, a short man in a uniform, with
an ancient face, hurried over with an umbrella, and signalled that
I should follow him to the terminal.
He set off at a half run, holding
the umbrella at exactly the right angle to get my hair caught in the
mechanism and poke me in the eye with the spokes at the same time.
As I scampered next to him across the rain-spotted tarmac, I realised
that each passenger on the flight had been greeted similarly, and
that our route from aircraft to terminal was lined with armed guards, legs encased in gestapo-style
jack-boots, dirty hands gripped firmly around sub-machine guns. I
could not seen their faces.
Falling is easy
We ran for a few hundred metres - the stocky porter tangling his umbrella in my hair
and I, allowing my small but heavy backpack to bounce around in my arms as I kept pace.
By the time we arrived at the terminal, I was out of breath. My heart
was racing, and I was gasping for air. My vision pounded and I couldn’t catch the top of my breath.
I felt confused and slow and
unco-ordinated, fumbling for passport and documentation in the pocket of my jacket.
Shuffling forward in the queue to have our documents expected, I tried
to think of all the phrases, so recently and well thought up and practiced,
to explain my research status. I had letters of sponsorship and introduction
from officials in three countries, and had rehearsed a little speech
with which to present them.
And yet as I searched my hazy memory,
I felt my brain cloud over, as if I had stood up too quickly. The
pounding in my chest was now so hard that I thought I was having a
heart attack. I felt nauseous and unfocused as I approached the official
beind the tall desk, handing him my papers. He asked to see my ticket,
and I crouched down to reach into the top compartment of my knapsack
to retrieve it.
Standing up, with papers in hand, I felt my brain turn black, and my
legs crumple beneath me. My eyes clouded over, and I hit the cool
tiled floor in slow motion, banging my head softly. I remember seeing the sign attached to the ceiling in three languages, all saying “Welcome to Bolivia.”
Then there was nothing.
