A traveller's notes

A flavour of contemporary travelling
'espere favor' ... 'please wait'.... That just about sums it up in the grand scheme of herding humans from one part of the world to the other in large metal containers. 'Stuff' is as troublesome as it was during packing, dictating the rummaging for pens at the bottom of bags and the 'right' piece of reading material for the occasion. Yes, I have everything the contemporary traveller could wish for: plasters; i phone (not in that order); husband (?); scarves (fashionable and warming); binoculars; bird books; note book; plastic bags (small to large); water bottle; umbrella; swine flu recovery pharmacy, etc.

Swine flu
Apart from making me extremely nervous, I haven't seen or heard any evidence that such a thing exists - apart from in my imagination, based on what I've read in the newspapers and listened to on the TV news. I haven't glimpsed so much as a face mask at Heathrow, amongst the thousands of travellers stuffed into terminal 3 yesterday; at Madrid airport; on both full planes or on arrival in Chile - which I read was a hotspot. My paranoia alerted me to the slightest cough, croak or sneeze, leading to near combustion when there was no soap in the dispensers in one of the ladies loos at Heathrow terminal 3 - which leads to the next heading - Victor Meldrewisms....

Victor Meldrewisms
I have tried to keep these to a minimum, especially as we are supposed to be setting of for a 'holiday' and I don't want to be too 'trying' for those poor unfortunates who have to put up with it. Apart from the subject of 'imaginary swine flu', the second most annoying has been 'cumersome cabin baggage' which has held up the progress of people (and me) getting on and off the planes. I know Phil... don't say it!! Going back to swine flue, the third has probably been people coughing and sniffing loudly on the planes...grrr

Researching overcoming jetlag
I didn't eat on the 13 hour plane journey to Santiago to check out the research recently demonstrated on a TV documentary on sleep - you saw it Phil? Without going into the details here, (eating being related to our internal body clock), I wanted to check out the theory that I wouldn't suffer from jed lag if I only drank water and didn't eat. Fortunately the research sample included a husband who ate everything, which accords with the TV sample. Anyway, so far... the day hasn't yet finished...and in my opinion as chief researcher, I am still quite perky whilst the other subject has hinted at the opposite. I'll make notes as dinner progresses.

Preparations for dinner
This is a note which will be of interest to Judith, who likes the finer things in life (!) - I've just put my longjohns on under trousers + four layers on top, as it's very chilly down here on the coast (inChileN.

There's loads more to tell you, especially about the camera on the top of the plane's tail which enabled us to get a good view of the Andes on the approach to Santiago. We managed to clock up a few bits and pieces of birds and creatures during the day, with highlights:
Sothern lapwing, Cattle Egret, Llama, Chimango Caracara, Great Egret, American Kestrel, Black-necked swan, Snowy Egret, Great Egret, Black Vulture, Masses of vineyards, Black-crowned Night Heron, Beaver (photographed), Great Grebe (feeding beautiful stripe-headed chick on water), Spot-flanked Gallinule (bright lime green bill), Red-fronted coot, Neotropic cormorant, Pied-billed Grebe, White-winged coot, American Oystercatcher (sixty), Brown-hooded gull, Chilean Mockingbird,White-Banded Mockingbird (said to be a vagrant!), Whimbrel, Peruvian Pelican, Grey Gull, Kelp Gull.

Thank goodness for the i phone too, as anything we don't know (which is everything), I can google - such as the population of Chile is about 13 million; about 5 million live in Santiago; it gets dark at about 6.30 (!) - now. I have got more to say about motorways, but for the sake of holiday harmony, I'd better stop for now.