All aboard, the hippy bus

Have now seen the future of UK airlines, on the assumption that we are always a few years behind our American cousins, and it isn’t pretty. Especially if judged by the two crew who were trying to sell me a sandwich flying from SF to LA. I have flown BA, SouthWest Airlines, American Airlines and LAN (from Chile) and can confirm they are merely differentiated merely by their degrees of shitness, SouthWest taking the prize for charging for your bags (on a 3000 mile flight) which meant every passenger taking on as much hand luggage as possible, the inevitable fighting to get some luggage space was not too similar to a bus in the developing world. Amazing how far we have progressed recently.

Even more irritating to the egalitarian traveler, always early to ensure he gets a seat etc, is the boarding systems used by the One World partners to BA. They have a boarding by smugness system that starts off with our “platinum” card members and first class flyers. The strutting of the well traveled executives and overpaid is followed by the Gold card members and business travelers. Next up came frequent flyers, but the thing is, these three groups made up close to 75% of the passengers. When the young, old and infirm were allowed to board, they had to battle past the brief case wielding hoards with their only priority being over the last sad sullen bunch, who faced the longest “walk of shame” known to man.

First you trundle to the stewardess who recognises cattle / sheep when she sees it. Down the tunnel where the random engineer is looking at the final collection with disdain. The warm greeting,glass of cold fruit juice (or even Champagne) and a complimentary newspaper has all been replaced with a sneering “Down the back, on your right”. By now the first class travelers have smug twat actually tattooed in their brow, such is the length of time that have been lording it over the peasants of business class, frequent traveler and the farmyard collection near the end. The Business section don’t have quite the swagger of the first class set, but they know they are a class above, that your seat will be significantly smaller and they are stretching their legs for all their worth.

So the walk of shame enters the cattle truck at the end, and the young parents of babies, old people and infirm are all doing their best to make this the longest boarding in history, and when eventually you get to your seat, some ten maybe fifteen minutes after you were due to arrive, you find some American has used up all the overspace in a 3 mile radius. Of course you could just politely take out his bag, put yours in, but confrontation is not the way for the British traveller and we simply shrug our shoulders and vow to slag the prick off on our anonymous blog instead. Well, it’s that or “C’mon then, Which of you arseholes owns this pathetic excuse of a bag? No, ok, it’s going on the floor then and if anyone wants a row, bring it on Yankee boy”.

Enough, the flight wasn’t that bad, it took off and landed and we got to the right airport, something BA don’t always seem able to do. My luggage also turned up with is always a bonus when flying with KLM I find. Upon arrival, the walk of shame is not repeated of course, as the smug and smugger still, are purposefully marching off to the their really important meeting arranging to sell the next batch of photocopiers of whatever it is that keeps them motivated to not throw themselves in front of train, so exciting is their life.

Anyhow, I finally get to Peru to join the hippy bus, and I have to report I am rather enjoying it. Out of 17 passengers and 2 crew, you expect a few knobbers, but with the exception of one irritatingly directive Canadian air stewardess, every passenger seems ok. There’s a nice mixture too, some quite young, a few middle aged ones with only one more mature lady and she is well up for it, joining in the dune sand boarding whilst I and a few others sat out. The trip leader is, as expected a bit of dood, but a likeable one and his being an ex medic and an ex DJ means we are in safe hands and get to listen to some cool sounds on the bus too!

There’s a couple of pretty young English girls who are a bit posh, but not overly so. A couple of mid 30s Aussie chicks who are also quite pretty,Milfs being the lads term, but like the two young English girls, I don’t think they are quite suited to overlanding. They are always too well turned out for starters! Make up on, nails done etc. which looks good, but when you’ve got tents to put up, dinners to cook, in the desert, it’s a kind of grubby existence and you're best is just to accept it and not fight it imho. But they are not complaining which is great and seem to be enjoying it at the moment.

The funniest two are a young Aussie and Kiwi who got really pissed on the first camping night and not realising how sound travels in the desert, proceeding to do their “Who would you shag?” conversation covering the assessing all 12 females on the trip! Next morning they were mortified when they realised that every word had been heard by just about every passenger, lol. It’s a conversation boys have (Indeed I joined in the next night – but in whispered tones) and I expect the girls do too, though it’s not one you want the world to hear!

Next up are two English nurses in their 30s, one 35, one 32. I know this because I messed up in answering the “How old do I look?” question with failing to remove the obligatory 10 years. So the 32 year old has the right hump with me! I remembered the take off 10 rule later, though I think 12 was a bit young for one of the younger girls. We have 3 Germans on the trip who are very, well, German. Germans are German and they have their own seats, haven’t invaded our bit yet, though we are obviously ready for an out of the blue advancement. Luckily we have no Polish travellers to get them started though.

There are others of course but I don’t want to go through everyone, just to say the standard of traveller is much better than feared and there is no one I don’t like, which is very unusual for me.

Will try and blog a bit about the trip next time, but just to say that Peru is very pretty in parts, but also could do with a good “clean up”. I suspect the effects of the Earthquake are still impacting the environment here though so I won’t be too judgemental. The Peruvians themselves also seem really pleasant and it’s such a shame I can’t speak any Spanish.

Early days but fingers crossed it’s going to be a great trip. Already had three bush camps and I love it under the stars with a fire, talking bollocks and sharing travellers stories. Bring it on.