Have Husband Can’t Travel
It’s only when Booking.com asks me to type in the reason why we’re cancelling our accommodation that the absurdity of the last week really hits me. ‘Pandemic’ I type and leave it at that. There’s no explanation needed. We’re all in the same boat. Or not, considering the risks. Certainly, most of us won’t be getting on a plane anytime soon. In the grand scheme of things, not being able to go on holiday is immaterial of course. It’s just one more thing we’re going to have to get used to as we rework our habits, our lives.
A week ago, there was still a dim chance that we were going to Uruguay, a very special trip we had planned to celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary. To be sure, the chances were dwindling rapidly, at first day by day and then hour by hour. By the end of the weekend the chances were almost down to nil, with our government advising against travel to Spain, especially Madrid. Our flight from Heathrow to Uruguay connected through Madrid and, on the return journey, we were going to spend two nights there. Clearly no longer. On Monday, the Foreign Office website reported that Uruguay had experienced its first COVID-19 cases and had imposed 14 day quarantine on most Europeans entering the country, although curiously, at that point, the UK wasn’t on the list. And then on Tuesday our government advised against going to Uruguay. The decision was taken out of our hands.
It came as something of a relief initially. The airline, Iberia, were not taking anyone’s calls and not replying to our queries about flight cancellations on Twitter. A couple of our hotels were sticking to their non-refundability policy. Having the FCO advise against travel suddenly removed any ambiguity over whether we would be able to get these purchases back through our travel insurance. Most of the rest we had booked through Booking.com and we could cancel ourselves without financial penalty. Even so, as I did cancel them I felt guilty for doing so: two of the places we were due to stay were small businesses: an estancia (ranch) and a winery. How would they fare without our custom? An irrational thought of course: there was no way we could get to Uruguay. And even if we somehow could, we would spend our entire trip (and then some) in quarantine.
This was by far the most intricately planned trip of our lives: 5 centres in 11 days. What made cancelling everything painful was we had purposely avoided booking places which belonged to faceless chains. We had named contacts at the accommodations and the hire car company which had been recommended by a Uruguay resident, an ex-pat from the UK whose excellent guide books we had been poring over excitedly since booking everything in December.
I had even embarked on a self-education in Uruguayan cinema in preparation for the trip, including their first ever gay film from around a decade ago. It’s a routine I have, like reading the local literature. I had even kept all of my shorts in my wardrobe rather than move them into the garage when the UK winter hit, knowing I would need to pack at least a couple of pairs for Uruguay where the weather in April would be on a par with early September here. We had also been cultivating a taste for Uruguayan wine, which is universally-delicious and one of the things we were most looking forward to learning about on our first South American adventure.
A cancelled holiday is a small price to pay for the safety of the human race. Let’s be clear here: I fully agree with shutting down the airspace and we’re just going to have to get on with not going out, except where absolutely necessary. And I don’t mean to sound selfish when the world has rather more pressing problems, but the truth is we are sad not to be going. At least we already have the trip planned for when we can go. Our first trip to the southern hemisphere will definitely be to Uruguay.
In the meantime, the irony of publishing this on a website called ‘Have Husband Will Travel’ is not lost on me. We are still going to be posting on here though because we believe in making the most out of our free time – even if we’re confined to our immediate surroundings. And we won’t be changing the name to ‘Have Husband Can’t Travel’ because, in the tradition of our beloved James Bond films:
Have Husband Will Travel WILL return.
