Monthly Archives: August 2012

Our River Voyage

Posted on by

We arrived at the little port of Pagwe, on the banks of the Sepik, after a bouncy 4 hour ride in a minibus, broken only by a short stop at a local market for us to buy some fresh produce.  At the time, we couldn’t quite work out why we were being encouraged with such enthusiasm to treat ourselves to a (delicious, by the way) young coconut, though this later became clear (see “Tuna’n’Noodles” post for further detail).  Waiting for us at the dock were our dugout canoe – all 20 foot of it, hand carved some 50 or more years ago from an exceptionally hard wood which grows locally – plus our crew for the next few days – George, Chris and our guide, Josh.  Deck chairs having been ceremonially placed in the canoe for us (the crew sat in the bottom of the canoe, but obviously us tourists are special) and our luggage and food supplies loaded, we were off!

The basic program for our trip was: day one – stop at some local villages on the main river to check out the spirit houses (more of which later); day two – head down to Blackwater Lakes, a stunning area upstream from the river and at comparatively high altitude where the style of the villages – lots of stilts – is particularly attractive, as is the mountainous background; day three – head to Chambry Lakes, another scenic area where the fish are so plentiful that as the lakes dry up in summer, it’s just not physically possible to catch them all and the area becomes quite smelly; day four – return to Pagwe to connect back to Wewak early the next morning.

So basically, 4 days spent mainly sitting in a remarkable old dugout canoe, watching river life gliding by.  Amazing scenery.  Hundreds of water birds (ibises, fish eagles).  Scores of local people out fishing in their dugouts, all of whom wave at you as you go past – we felt like the Queen.  Then we’d pull into some village somewhere and see what there was to see – generally, a spirit house or men’s house containing the traditional village cultural things (and some carvings to buy – yeah!), maybe a health care centre or a waterfall.  Return to the canoe and pootle on a bit before coming to a rest in a local village where we’d stay the night. At night, mainly just some relaxing time with the locals (though we did go crocodile hunting the first night – more exciting than it sounds, the largest we saw was about 18 inches!!).  Unbelievably relaxing, and yet the trip, and in particular the way of life of the local people, gave us a huge amount to think about – we were certainly never bored.

The comedy part of our trip came from the organizational front – or rather lack of it.

We got our first hint of this as we rocked up to the village guesthouse on day one – only to be chased out again thirty seconds later.  The guesthouse had been badly overbooked (all guests of Seby…oops), with 21 people fighting over about 12 rooms / bedding piles.  Fortunately, we were rescued by Sara, Seby’s sister in law, who carted us off to her house and put us up for the night with only the tiniest of avaricious glances at our food supply box to provide an inkling of an explanation as to this unlooked for generosity.  Part of the deal we struck was that any food we didn’t eat would go to her (as would some of the other more random supplies we carried – 2 bottles of curry powder, a couple of boxes of Ziploc bags … anyone would think the supplies had been provided specifically to address certain village requirements rather than to feed us for 3 days).  Actually, whilst it got a bit grating, her continual exclamations as to how lucky we were felt pretty accurate as we chatted around the fire for a couple of hours, listening to the sounds of  our fellow tourists haggling over the last sleeping mat.

Our next hint came via a delegation, led by our guide, Josh, wanting to know what we planned to do over the next few days.  The itinerary, so carefully planned with Seby, hadn’t been communicated to him so he had no clue as to what he should be doing.

This, as it turned out, was exacerbated rather by the fact that Josh had never guided before.  He told us this on day 2 – James asked how long he’d guided before, to which the merry response was “But I’m not a guide!!” (sub voce: what the hell made you think that??).  50 miles from the nearest cell phone signal, we gulped, smiled and accepted it.

The break though came later that day – a clear understanding between us and Josh (a) that we knew that he knew that we knew that Seby had totally failed to make any kind of plans whatsoever for us and that as a result, we and Josh were sort of relying on being helped out by random friends and family of Josh and (b) that we didn’t mind a bit – we were having a fantastic time, a complete adventure, and Josh was an unbelievably good guide – he is the main tradesman used by his village when they run out of sago and have to trade with other more sago-rich villages downstream, so he knows the river, and most of the people on it, backwards.  After which, we all rubbed along together just fine and Josh noticeably relaxed – to the extent that he was then perfectly happy the next day to act as our supplier for banana homebrew, despite the severe consequences of being found out in that activity by Sara, a committed Seventh Day Adventist (and also someone who was clearly keen that we spend most of our time sleeping and thereby consuming only a minimal amount of our food supply!).

We had a wonderful time on the river.  The mild chaos was oddly part of the charm – it never interfered with our pleasure and I think in most instances enhanced it.  Staying with Sara gave us a real perspective on modern life in the Sepik, that I don’t think we would otherwise have really understood.  And Josh, once he’d realized we weren’t going to explode on him, was an entertaining and informative guide to a part of the world he clearly loved.

Or maybe my hindsight is just coloured by realizing just how fortunate we really were – another group of Seby’s who we met in Wewak had spent 3 days eating peanut butter and crackers after Seby forgot to restock the boat with food.

Compared to which, our trip was LUXURY!

Heading Upriver

Posted on by

The mild diversion of finding ourselves a safe, secure, half reasonably priced hotel aside, we were in Wewak for a reason. This is the launch point for pretty much all of the trips down the Sepik river, a place renowned both for its beauty and for its isolation from the outside world. If you want to see this and you don’t want to actually paddle your own canoe, Wewak is the place to arrange for someone else to do so (well, to chuck a 40 HP motor on the back – same principle).

We had in Madang had a very brief introduction to logistics in PNG. The internet rarely works, so email is out, and people typically don’t answer their phones. This presents certain impediments to establishing contact with the middlemen to whom you wish to pay vast quantities of money such that they can find you your canoe. Fortunately, having been dropped by the Good Samaritans in the only good hotel in town we had a massive advantage here in that most of the middlemen swing by during the course of any given morning. With the exception that is of the middleman we’d come here expecting to speak to (he’s the only one mentioned in the Lonely Planet so our hopes were rather hanging on him), who was upriver and out of contact. [As an aside, we later heard – scurrilous gossip – from a tour guide in Kumul that the guy has now become fairly intolerable after years of being top dog and now can’t be bothered to sort out the small stuff for you. Like food. Close escape?]

First up then: a guy called Chris Karis. Young and pretty presentable (teeth weren’t betel stained, clothes were whole-ish and clean-ish, but exhausted and expensive. Couldn’t really be bothered to give us any detail on what we’d do and where we’d go, but happy to tell us that it would cost us about $3,000 for 3 days upriver. Cue enormous gulp from James and I. We sought other alternatives.

This appeared in the form of one gentleman called Seby. Not quite so presentable this time (dirty clothes and filthy teeth), but willing to give us both a detailed itinerary and a cheaper price – down to about $2,200 for 4 days upriver through both slightly cheaper prices all round and the removal from the quote of the transfer back from the river at $400 one way. [You’ll hear more about that later…..]. We were sold – albeit with further big gulps – we were just a tiny bit over budget here…. And not at all nervous when we ran into Chris Karis again later, told him who we were headed upriver with, and he nearly choked….

Payment, of course, is in cash. Half as soon as we agreed terms (they very kindly dropped us at the bank to pick it up) and the remainder the following morning as they picked up food and we prepared to set off. Frankly at this point, we were so delighted not to have been proven to be the unwitting victims of a total scam that we maybe didn’t notice tiny little pointers that Seby might not have been quite so well organized as he could have been. Maybe our $400 ride up, in a knackered old minibus that gasped up every hill should have warned us…

Still, we were on our way!

[We finally make it to the river – James helping pump our US$500 drum of fuel into the boat]

Backgrounds – Sepik River

Posted on by

And so we move on to the Sepik River, home of ancient customs, sacred taboos and the world’s most bad ass dugout canoes…

Our valet, parking the car

Our valet, parking the car

Inside a men's house. Taken by Lucy, a woman. Go figure.

Inside a men’s house. Taken by Lucy, a woman. Go figure.

Another busy day on the Sepik River

Another busy day on the Sepik River

Joseph and Mary vs. PNG

Posted on by

Or: how we eventually found a hotel in Wewak (and no, neither of us is pregnant).

It has never taken me two days to find a hotel before. We turned up in Wewak with our trusty Lonely Planet in hand, hoping to find not only a hotel at short notice, but also a tour guide to take us up the Sepik river (of which more later). It was a relatively tall order, but one of the best known Sepik guides actually runs his own hotel, so we walked confidently past all the hotel taxis at the airport and strolled the short distance to the Surfside Hotel. Which was a series of portakabins sheltering under a three story building site (OK…), and which had nobody at reception (less OK…). So we waited, and waited, and tried the hotel next door (ugh), and waited, and it got dark. And you really don’t want to be caught out after dark. And here begins an epic story to rival that of the holy parents themselves. Laying it all out longhand would turn into a long list of and-then-we-did-this. So, a few selected and compressed highlights:

  • Our initial rescue by a pair of scruffy good Samaritans with a Land Cruiser (one of whom turned out to work at Deloitte PNG, of all places) and driven to the best hotel in the country “where the white people stay”(!). The Inn Wewak Boutique Hotel is actually reasonable value at US$200+ per night but was deemed a little too expensive so we resolved to try again the next morning
  • Discovering that the hotel we had targeted as a cheaper alternative was – how shall I put this? – a brothel full of drunks. Complete with complementary condoms in the rooms. Nice! And great value at US$175 a night
  • Not being let past security at our next choice of hotel – we clearly looked undesirable (perhaps they thought I was a drunk, and Lucy was, erm, also a drunk)
  • Eventually finding Francis – our saviour and the owner of the Eden Blooms Transit Inn. Deaf as a post, deeply eccentric (i.e. he had a fully equipped kitchen, missing only an oven or stove of any kind) but good to us. There was no hot water, and you had to be careful not to fall through the floor in places, but it was cheap at the price ($US60 a night). We didn’t have the heart to tell him that in the UK a transit house was a place where ex-convicts were rehabilitated, and that this was perhaps impacting the tourist trade just a little…
  • Shocking the staff at the posh hotel so much by our exploits that when we returned a few days later – stumbling out of the jungle, hungry and unshaven with armfuls of native carvings and desperately in need of a shower that didn’t come out of the river – they automatically gave us a 20% pity discount. But that is another story.
Our eventual hotel. The sign says "One person (given a mattress on the floor) – 60 Kina". Class!

Our eventual hotel. The sign says “One person (given a mattress on the floor) – 60 Kina”. Class!

Our eventual hotel. The sign says “One person (given a mattress on the floor) – 60 Kina”. Class!

Bats and Coconuts – Welcome to Papua New Guinea

Posted on by
This song is actually called 'Papua New Guinea', although I have absolutely no idea why. It sounds exactly like nothing you hear in PNG

 

When we set off from NYC back at the end of May, one of our observations was that there was no hard start to our trip. We drifted away from the very familiar surroundings of the East Coast into gradually more unusual places. Regular subscribers (all 27 of you! Hurray!) may remember this post from back then describing how it felt. Had we started in PNG, all of that pseudo-intellectual musing would have been moot. PNG is different – very different. We are actually writing these posts in the Solomon Islands, having left PNG (we always stagger our posts a little behind time to allow a buffer for inevitable internet blackouts) and we have now had at least some time and distance to digest the trip. What will follow is a mix of the usual frivolous nonsense and at least a couple of relatively thoughtful notes on our impressions of the country. PNG certainly makes you think. We had an amazing time there, and would recommend it whole-heartedly to some of our friends.

Anyway, back to the good stuff:

We arrived in Port Moresby on a flight from Cairns and (following good advice from people we trust) immediately left town without setting foot outside the airport. The best hotel in Port Moresby is actually situated just beside the airport, and is designed to allow travelers to pay a hefty premium have absolutely nothing to do with the capital city of PNG (we will post on our return journey another time). We had selected the sleepy seaside town of Madang as our first stop, based on which flights had the shortest connection in Port Moresby, and arrived later that afternoon wide eyed.

Bats, sir. Thaasands of them. Where you might normally expect gulls in a town by the sea, Madang has bloody great fruit bats. They roost hundreds at a time in bloody great trees when they aren’t flocking around in dark, ominous-looking, bloody great clouds. (Interesting Galapagos-type factoid: there seemed to be no bat poop under the roosting trees, perhaps because they roost upside down?). Apparently they taste pretty good, but we didn’t find anywhere which served them. Instead we ate at one of the best-rated restaurants in PNG (no joke) – a walled-off part of corrugated iron shed called “Eden”, which couldn’t have looked less pre-possessing if it tried but which served a mighty fine rendang.

We are trying hard to avoid “been-there-done-that-itis” where our blog is simply a teenage diary-style list of things we have done. It is going to be hard for PNG, given the amazing s*** we got up to. Let’s just say, after a day of walking around town, sipping beer and eating coconut flesh, we decided that Madang wasn’t sufficiently intrepid. Next stop the Sepik River!

Sydney and the Great(ish) Barrier Reef

Posted on by

Waving a fond and rather sad farewell to South America, James and I set off for the next stage of our adventure. This next stage really will be pretty adventurous, we’re off to Papua New Guinea, a country where a good proportion of the population was only discovered in the 1930s, and cannibalism was still occasionally practiced up until about 50 years ago.

Which is great and all, but after all of our intrepidness in South America, we were feeling a little adventured out and in need of some good old fashioned civilization. Coffee. Cocktails. Those little luxuries that make the world go round (well, our world anyway). Fortunately, it’s pretty much impossible to connect from Easter Island through to Papua New Guinea without routing via Australia, so civilization was to be had a-plenty. Maybe even enough to last us through our next big adventuring phase. Maybe….

First stop, Sydney. We’ve both visited the city before and love it, especially the main harbour area. However, this time round, Sydney served a far more important function for us. Yep, time to re-stock on toiletries and the all important suntan lotion! Also a chance to FINALLY get my hands on a shiny new Kindle after James accidentally broke my last one in Uyuni (since when, I’ve been relying on his iTouch to read with – which is fine other than the fact the battery lasts less time than my reading activity does!). Also a chance for us to indulge in some good food (sushi!! I’d almost forgotten about sushi!!) and try not to weep at the insanely high prices (Aussie dollar at an all time high) then work it all off again in a properly equipped gym. We even managed to pack in a couple of fantastic cocktails, including this cheeky little number served with its own side dish of saffron infused apricots. NYC bartenders, watch your back!

In short, indulgence of the highest degree.

Next stop, Cairns. This is where most of the flights to PNG leave from and so we figured we’d spend a day or two here and wrap in a trip to the Great Barrier Reef. Rude not to, really.

What did we make of the Reef? Well, mixed impressions really. You have to bear in mind that we are both incredibly spoilt when it comes to snorkeling, particularly after our recent trip to the Galapagos. Mere amazing reef and fish life no longer suffice to get the Lucy/James swimometer racing – to really get us excited we need a few rare sea mammals floating around the place also. The Great Barrier Reef is – well – a great reef, with coral quite unlike anything I’ve seen before. But the fish are less spectacular than those elsewhere, and the conditions were pretty awful – cold and windy enough to make the sea choppy and snorkeling a little saltwater-filled.

Definitely worth seeing and lots of fun, but not a trip highlight.

Which perhaps more than anything else in this trip spells out to me just how incredibly lucky we are to be doing this utterly amazing journey.

Travelling in South America – The Stats

Posted on by
  • Countries visited: four (Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia)
  • Visa stamps collected: sixteen (including cheeky unofficial ones from the Inca trail, Macchu Picchu, Galapagos Islands and Easter Island). Lucy might run out of passport space before we are done!
  • Temperature range: 25C (Galapagos) to -20C (Bolivia – brrr!)
  • Min and max pieces of clothing worn: one (swimming with sharks in the Galapagos) and 16 (Lucy in Bolivia, not including three blankets, a sleeping bag and a hot water bottle at night)
  • Max days without a shower: 3.5 (twice – Uyuni Salt Flats and Inca Trail). For the record, it’s OK if you are both smelly at the same time
  • Pisco sours drunk: 35 (best one claimed made by James in Easter Island). And 35 isn’t as bad as it sounds between the two of us over a whole month! On second thoughts, how did we drink so little?
  • Rodents eaten: not entirely sure. Rodents eaten on purpose: one
  • Highest altitude: 4,900m (on the Uyuni salt flats tour. Gasp, wheeze.)
  • Most bone rattling ride: it’s a close call between the bus ride from Uyuni to Potosi (Lucy hit the ceiling at one point, from a reclining chair) and the final night crossing in the Galapagos (Lucy hit the ceiling at one point, from a prone position in bed)
  • Best building: you might think the Incas would win this, but our hotel room in Puno after four days in a jeep had a duvet! And a hot shower! And cable TV!
  • Best monolithic structure (South Pacific island category): the HUGE double ice cream cone that James ate in the shade of a stone Moai on Easter Island
  • Best new expression: “Poop!” – used twenty times a day by our guide in the Galapagos, and now a common part of our joint vocabulary. (But think about it, he has grannies and toddlers in his multi-lingual groups – how better to say it?)
  • Most unexpected cake: it’s a tie between the one five days out of port on the Galapagos boat trip baked on a slant in the galley, and the one three days into the Inca trail, baked on a propane burner. One said “Happy Honeymon” (sic) in icing; the other had bright green jelly on top – decisions, decisions
  • Scariest flight-related moment: a toss-up between Lucy in a turbulent six seater Cessna over the Nasca lines, and James when a condor about the size of the aforementioned Cessna flew low over his head in Colca Canyon
  • Closest wildlife encounter: you might think it was in the Galapagos, but almost being pushed off the Inca Trail over a sheer drop by a pack Llama probably clinches it
  • Intrepid Points gained: hundreds!

So, goodbye South America, roll on Papua New Guinea!

Modern Life is Rubbish

Posted on by

Normally progress works forwards, right?

There have been a number of occasions on this trip where we have been forced to question this assertion. One example: since Lucy was last here, local-character-suppressing globalization has well and truly arrived in South America, Venti Starbucks in one hand, slice of traveler-pleasing pizza in the other. On the other hand, wifi is now ubiquitous, which is pretty cool.

The most egregious example of modernity making things worse, however, came in Santiago de Chile. We had decided to stay in an “Aparthotel”. Strangely this turned out to be unlike the excellent New York Aparthotels in which Lucy and I did our investment banking training in 1999 (thank you DLJ; thank you Wasserstein Perella). I won’t go into the grotty, soulless details here for fear of depressing myself and boring you. Let’s just say that the biscuit was well and truly stolen by the well-advertized “free breakfast is included”. Behold:

Two (2) shrink-wrapped single slices of plastic white bread and two (2) small plastic-wrapped single servings of cheap corn flakes. Not shown were two (2) plastic-wrapped single servings of UHT milk and two (2) plastic-wrapped single servings of processed orange juice. As we declined this feast on day one, on day two the machine provided us with a total of four (4) shrink wrapped slices of plastic white bread etc etc. I never would have thought it possible to become so deeply depressed by someone giving me free food. I just suspected that if we had died in there we would have ended up buried in the stuff before anyone noticed.

Aaaanyway, we de-funked ourselves, headed over to the old fish market to eat our bodyweight in El Bouillabaisse, watched the Olympic Opening ceremony on TV (Mr Bean! And the Actual Queen! With James Bond!) and took ourselves to an excellent steak restaurant to drink red wine and eat our bodyweight in El Filet Mignon. Next stop Sydney!

Mud and Moai

Posted on by

Easter Island.  The mere name is enough to make you tingle – the mystery of the ancient population that lived and died here, leaving only the enigmatic moai as their legacy.  It’s also a beast of a place to get to.  We had to go.

First impressions of this amazing place, it has to be said, weren’t great.  We flew there from Cusco just after the Inca Trail – one of those flights which is theoretically just fine (only one connection, in Lima), but in practice quite brutal – a 5pm flight from Cusco to Lima, then a seven hour layover in Lima airport before a 1am flight to Easter Island, landing at 6 in the morning.  Bear in mind that for the past few days we’d been going to bed same time between 7 and 8 at night – and the fact that the Lima airport lounge is lousy – and you’ll appreciate that we were a little on the tired and grumpy side when we landed.

Then hit Hurricane Dani.  Well, actually make that Damp Squall Dani.  The manager of the (otherwise lovely) guest house she was staying in, capable of turning the cheeriest soul despairing within a few short seconds.  “Welcome to the island.  You here for long?  Three days?  Oh.  There isn’t much to do here and it’s pretty wet right now…..” All this cheery chit chat whilst waiting for an hour for our fellow passengers just to enjoy the privilege of our 3 minute courtesy transfer to the guesthouse.  We got Dani’ed a few more times over the next few days – no, it was impossible to arrange a tour of the island (took us 10 minutes), no there were no good places to buy fresh produce (partially true, but we managed), etc, etc.  It actually affected our mood for the first half day we were there, until we realised what was happening, shrugged off our despondency and set off to explore!

And what better way to explore a mystical island full of ancient statues than by quad bike!  Sounds crazy, but actually all of the roads on one side of the island are dirt tracks and extremely difficult to navigate in a car, so a quad bike is actually a pretty solid way to get around.  Plus its FUN.  Other than when you get caught in one of the many heavy downpours that Easter Island suffers at this time of year – yep, we did, nope it didn’t bother us (that much), but that’s why we’re in full waterproofs in all the photos.

It rains a LOT there.   And the wind is also pretty crazy – think a visit to the blustery Scottish countryside in early spring and you’ve about got the measure of it. The unexpected advantage of which being the amazing rainbows we saw almost every day on the island, adding yet one more dimension of slight un-realism to the place.

First stop on the quad bike was Rono Kau crater, a crater lake covered in reeds whose crater rim also forms the edge of the island at that point.  Wildly scenic, it’s known as Witch’s Cauldron and looks just that way with the reeds simmering away on the giant circular surface. Then onto the Orongo Village, which is a partially restored old village, lived in by a tribe with a strong birdman culture.  It’s only once you’ve been on the island that the houses – hobbit like little places which don’t get much higher than about 2 foot – make sense.  Anything to escape the ever present wind.

Then finally the moment we’d been waiting for – our first glimpse of moai.  The first site we saw had a couple of broken down moai on the ground – very romantic and a great intro to the place (yes they really are that big!).  The next site, Ahu Akivi, was the money site – seven standing moai, all facing towards the sea (unusual – most of the moai faced inland as they faced towards the village they were erected to protect).  We got there just before sunset and enjoyed the place in near solitude for some time; it was magical.

The next day we went on a tour which took us to another couple of great sites – Ahu Tongariki, with 15 moai all near the coastline, and Rono Rakuru, the quarry were all the moai were created.  Rono Rakuru in particular was pretty flabbergasting – there are over 30 moai there, all still half buried in the earth (the theory is that the moai were built in advance of local big wigs’ deaths – but that the tribe then died out, or possibly ran out of trees to be able to roll the moai to their intended sites, before they could be erected).  It’s strangely like being in a tiki bar –  there’s so many moai and they’re all so well preserved that you half expect to tap one of them and find out its made of polystyrene. (They’re not.  I tried.  I hurt my fist).

Next day was a slow day to potter round Hanga Roa, see a few more moai and relax a bit.  We got up pretty early to go buy some fresh food for dinner (the island has markets, but they are pretty ad hoc, running from the time the boats land with fish to the time that everything has been sold).  Stepping outside the front door we were followed by a vaguely collie like dog.  Which, as it turned out, had adopted us for the day.  We walked to town; the dog followed.   We went into the market; the dog waited outside patiently.  Ditto at the supermarket.  The dog curled up on James’ feet whilst we enjoyed our daily indulgence of coffee and ice cream, then walked happily home with us.  It strangely made this one of our nicest relaxed days of the trip so far.

We’ve 2 theories for the dog’s delight in us: (1) James’ magnetic personality; or (2) the presence throughout the day of the enormous spiky local fish which we’d bought early in the day.  I hear the local name is dogfood fish.  It was very tasty.

Handicap Cocktail Making

Posted on by

No, it’s not what you think. Although the mind does boggle slightly.

Among the things I miss most about our apartment in New York is my cocktail kit. Nothing fancy: a simple Boston-style shaker, a solid bar glass, a measure, a strainer and a freezer full of cold, hard ice next to a good-sized sink with running (and, er, drinkable) water. That, and a shelf of sporadically gathered bottles of booze and a bowl of fresh fruit. I’m very happy to improvise in less ideal circumstances, however, and our trip has already been livened up by the occasional scratch Pisco sour and one deeply confused Qantas air steward facing a request for ginger beer, a shot of dark rum, and a fistful of lime slices.

Airline lounges, however, present a specific problem. Good ones raise the spirits with an array of fine bottles of booze and lots of shiny glassware, but there are often strange holes where delicious drinks might otherwise be: only tiny slices of lemon (for example) or nothing to improvise a shaker out of, or if there is a shaker (hello LA!) no sink to rinse if out. We have often been reduced to drinking straight champagne which, as you can imagine, is a deep penance.

So, with no further ado, here is the list of cocktails that you normally can make in airline lounges (and thank you once again, dear employer, for granting me my BA gold card with all that transatlantic travel!)

  • Firstly, anything you can get served in your university bar: gin ‘n tonic, vodka ‘n tonic, rum ‘n coke, vodka n’coke, whisky n’water blah blah blah boring boring boring. (although for those who haven’t tried dark rum n’tonic it actually works surprisingly well)
  • First call, therefore, is an improvised classic champagne cocktail: sugar from the coffee counter sachets (in place of cube sugar) a half shot of good cognac and top it up with the ubiquitous champagne. See photo below, however…
  • Tequila sunrise. Old school! There often seems to be grenadine in these places for some 80’s reason. And always tequila, and always bottles of plastic orange juice. Result! (particularly if you happen to be in Miami and therefore able to get away with it, which we were)
  • The classic martini. There’s always gin / vodka; there’s always martini; there are usually olives. The only challenge is finding enough ice to make the damned things cold enough to drink without wincing
  • Prepared beers. OK, so these haven’t really caught on outside that weird restaurant on the Lower East Side. Beer (preferably Mexican), lots of tabasco, tequila, salt and pepper. Let’s just say it’s an acquired taste, but actually rather good with food

Beyond that you start to struggle. That said, I guess we do have a while yet to perfect this strangely specific life skill. Any further suggestions on a postcard please!

(on tasting) "Hang on, are there angostura bitters in this champagne cocktail?" What a great girl!

(on tasting) “Hang on, are there angostura bitters in this champagne cocktail?” What a great girl!