The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Diary of a coronavirus castaway
Sarah Baxter is one of hundreds of Britons stuck in Peru because of cancelled flights. Here is her story
DAY 1 MARCH 17
As of midnight last night, I am stuck in Peru. I was asleep at the moment when my new semi-imprisoned status was announced, having had precisely no rest the night before, conveying the news that I had a little over 24 hours to get out of the country. Yesterday – a frantic day of messaging, calls, stress, food buying and disbelief – ended with me still in Peru but floored by the power of community (within hours a “Little Britain SOS” WhatsApp group formed for Britons stuck in Cusco) and with the kindness of strangers: a friend of a friend has taken me in and is offering me food and letting me use his washing machine and internet. His sons have just made me the best banana split ever. In crazy times, humans can be quite brilliant.
So I am stranded. While it’s popular to bemoan social media and smartphones, they are my best friends right now. I call my boyfriend via
Wi-Fi (I think he may be more worried than me); he puts my cat on the line – hearing Gizmo purr while I am in the heights of the Andes is when I really start to well up. I’m so far from home, from partner, animals, friends, gym, work, normal routine. Though according to all reports, the home I left two weeks ago is a very different place.
The day has involved hours of screen time – researching and tweeting and trying to stay abreast of the local advice and #stuckinperu chat. Bursts of optimism vie with tales of misery – one Briton here relies on weekly medication and has a limited amount left. There is also muchneeded camaraderie – Brianna, a solo traveller in a hostel, types about how the WhatsApp group has made her feel less alone. I wholeheartedly agree.
At lunchtime, there’s a cause for mini-celebration. The Peruvian president has given permission for humanitarian rescue flights to land! Could this be a ticket out? Now we need the UK Government to respond, but it’s amazing how quickly things change. I’ve gone from being certain
I’ll be here a month to allowing myself to believe that it might be only days…
It’s night-time now and the streets are eerily quiet, though the dogs – eternally barking – fill the silence. The airport lies dormant. We sneak out for a walk, taking the backstreet scenic route, free from patrolling police, to buy provisions, and I see the empty runway. Behind it are green foothills dotted with Inca ruins – I might want to get out of this place but it’s still spectacular. Two police do stop us briefly. We brandish the bread and (definitely essential) ice cream we’ve bought, to explain our presence out of doors. They’re wearing face masks and tell us we need to do the same, but thankfully let us pass without fuss.
Back inside, I check my phone again. There are positive rumblings about salvation. We’ve been mentioned on the BBC, in Parliament, on local radio, in print. A few hundred voices virtually banded together might be making a real difference.
DAY 2 MARCH 18
Woken this morning around 6am with a start. Loudspeakers are yelling through the streets of Cusco. I sit bolt upright – is it the army? A riot? A presidential decree? No, it’s the bin men, who turn up the volume of their stereos to move people out of the way. Only there aren’t any people. No traffic or folk on their way to work. Empty.
I roll over and try to get back to sleep but it’s useless. The dogs, of which there are many, are barking and my phone – to which I am becoming increasingly addicted – is beckoning. What if there’s good news?
There isn’t. Yet. But plenty of action, from MPs’ responses to rumours of rescue flights for other nationalities. While the British Government has issued little but platitudes for the past three days, I learn that Israel is rescuing its 1,000-odd Peru-stuck citizens on Thursday, the French on Saturday; looks like the Mexicans, Poles and Americans are being repatriated by their governments too.
I speak to my parents, who seem remarkably chipper. Dad – who has heart and lung issues – is still playing golf (I demand he avoids the 19th hole); Mum has enough wine. She has always been funny about touching door handles – a foible I’ve always mocked. But now she’s having the last laugh.
Mid-morning I chat to the BBC via Skype. I shudder at the state of me – I was in Peru on a trekking trip and didn’t think to pack the hair-andmake-up kit required for media appearances. But publicising the plight of the near-400 Britons abandoned here seems rather more important than worrying about my travel spots and cold sore. I say my piece. The story we’re trying to push out to everyone: we had 24 hours’ notice to get out; our leaders have done virtually nothing to help.
Lunch is lovely. I’m staying in the home of Paul Cripps, owner of tour operator Amazonas Explorer, and despite his own major concerns about the state of his business, he has welcomed me, a stranger, with open arms. We eat pasta in his sunny garden with his two sons, who defy all moody-teenager stereotypes. With their school closed, they’re studying at home, and are chatty and cheerful.
Messages from home keep asking how I am, which is lovely. And I say
I’m fine, because I am. It could be so much worse. But ask me again this time next week, and if nothing has changed, I might not feel the same.
DAY 3 MARCH 19
A bad morning. The first thing I do on waking is read an article in which the Foreign Secretary says those stranded overseas should expect to be stuck for some time… Just how long exactly? Feeling the furthest I’ve ever felt from home, I blub into a pillow that isn’t mine for a bit. Then give myself a virtual slap. Get up. Get dressed. And I speak to a journalist on the phone about our #ukstuckinperu campaign while stroking Neo, my host’s dog.
The big news is that airline Avianca has said it is considering running UK repatriation flights – but for a cool $3,000-$3,500 (£2,540-£2,970). Meanwhile the Israelis trapped here are being taken home for free. The French for about €700. The Germans about €1,000. It’s not nice to feel abandoned by your country and extorted by the airline that was meant to take you home anyway.
The local shop is out of bread. And venturing out seems to be more restricted. But we try to make the most of things, and set up a circuit class in the garden. For a moment at least, the biggest challenges are burpees.
DAY 4 MARCH 20
Brushing my teeth, I wonder how long my toothpaste will last… I packed for two weeks. Which has already turned to three. Hardly the most pressing issue when you’re umpteen miles from home – but I have plenty of thinking time on my hands.
Then it’s back to the rather more serious business of helping pen a press release about our predicament. It’s nice to have a purpose. It’s also nice to be so well looked after by my hosts. Lunch is paltas a la reina, a creamy concoction of avocado (they are amazing here), chicken (I was veggie before, but, hey, I’m not going to be picky) and apple. Delicious.
DAY 5 MARCH 21
Sitting on the sofa with a nip of pisco, ah, what a day. Its opening was a sucker punch: news that a Peruvian government minister had gone on live TV to say even repatriation flights would be banned by the end of the day. Visions of an eternity spent up in the Andes, rage at the lack of official help. But then, glimmers of hope. Correspondence from the FCO at last: a rescue looking set for next week.
And while this emotional rollercoaster plays out on my flashing phone, I’m sweeping out the wood-fired oven, chopping tomatoes, grating cheese – it’s a lockdown Saturday and the family with whom I’m staying have decided to fill the day with pizza making. Life goes on. By the time our first slices are ready (it takes a good, fun while) the positive updates on our exile are rolling in. Garden air, giggles, good news. Pizza never tasted so good.
DAY 6 MARCH 22
This time last week I was at Machu Picchu, the should-have-been grand finale to my Peru adventure. I scroll through the pictures; it feels like aeons ago. So much and so little has changed. The world has tilted; I’m still right here.
To occupy this sunny Cusco Sunday, I mix a BBC interview with a craft session very much of our times: making DIY face masks. My host Paul, his sons and I search the internet for designs and settle on a simple model requiring only kitchen roll, elastic bands, glue and staples. At the online tutorial’s end, even the guy demonstrating admits the mask is useless, but it whiles away time. The dining table turned briefly Blue Peter.
I’m grateful for the distraction, but my mind can’t move far from yesterday’s promise of repatriation, and from the logistical difficulties I know that will entail. There are 600-plus UK and Irish stranded across this topographically awkward country – distanced by mountains, deserts and jungles. Getting us all together is not going to be a breeze, with overland and air transport banned, and journeys long. Cusco to Lima by bus is some 24 rough hours.
But then I see Charlie has drawn a panda face on his mask and the world gets a little bit better again.
DAY 7 MARCH 23
Breakfast, emails, a Skype chat with ITV. But no further news of rescue. Just Boris Johnson announcing the lockdown of the UK. At least he’s allowing people out for exercise. No such permission here. So once again, we turn the garden into a gym to stay active in confinement. I might come home fitter than I left…
At the session’s end, we discuss whether we’ll do it again tomorrow. Charlie says no, it’s a rest day. “Two days on, one day off – that’s what we do.” That’s what we do. I’ve been here a week – seven days ago we were strangers – and already we’ve slipped into a routine. A new, faraway normal.
DAY 8 MARCH 24
Getting dressed this morning, I wonder: have I got enough clean knickers to last my exile? This is an exciting prospect. News has come that the first rescue flight is landing in Lima today, to take about 200 Britons home tomorrow. Emails have gone out to the lucky ones. I’m not one of them – quite rightly, the old and vulnerable are off first, plus I’m in more complicated Cusco. But still… Four pairs… Will it, could it, be enough?
DAY 9 MARCH 25
‘At least Boris Johnson is allowing people out for exercise. No such permission here’
A good day. A dreadful day. After more than a week in Peruvian lockdown, comprising scant communication from anyone official, furious tweeting, a lot of burpees performed in my “prison” garden, and a confused jumble of rumour, news and fake news, today the first rescue flight took a batch of Britons (about 200) from Lima back home. I’m terribly jealous of course, but also over the moon for them. And I hope they mark the start of a mass, long-fought-for exodus.
But such positivity has just turned sour. Today two travellers in a Cusco hostel have tested positive for Covid-19. This means the almost-150 others staying there – including nine Britons – are now under a quarantine that could last up to three months, locked in their rooms for 23 hours a day. I need to repeat that: three months, 23 hours. No longer a holiday but a sentence. I’m struggling to put the horror of that into words; I can’t imagine the fear and sadness those in that hostel are feeling.
At the moment, I’m lucky. I’m staying elsewhere in Cusco. But as the clock ticks, how many more of us might find ourselves in indefinite quarantine, stuck in Peru even if the as-yet-unconfirmed rescue flights do come? We have been fighting to get brought back from Peru since we were trapped here nine days ago. But the stakes have just been raised, the fight is in its most desperate round.
Read Sarah Baxter’s daily diary at telegraph.co.uk/tt-perucastaway