Travel Biography - Week 17.

Psychology for World Travel.

In 1972, whilst still 19 years of age, I thought this was the end of the road for me when my girlfriend said goodbye. At that time, which was the spring of that year, I still had the tickets for a holiday together in Spain - on the Costa Brava to be more precise. So I contacted the Cosmos Booking Office to ask for an amendment. The result was that a male college friend accompanied me on this package instead of my ex.

At my peak. How I looked in New York 1978.

By the end of 1977, I had come a long way. Perhaps ironic in a sense, my desire for travel was borne out of that broken relationship experience. Here I was, as a teenager, already thinking about courtship, marriage and having children. To be the "average guy" like a couple of ex-classmates I had seen pushing a pram in the street, and the very thought of being left on the shelf seemed foreboding.

Just this week, a couple of evenings before this week's blog was written and published, the BBC documentary Ambulance highlighted a case of a man in his early thirties who was recently dumped by his girlfriend. This left him feeling suicidal, and he called 999 after an overdose of drugs that had left him in a hysterical state, even lashing out at the vehicle furniture around him. He had to be gently calmed before admission into the hospital.

Therefore, Christian devotionals such as Enjoying Being Single by Elspeth Stephenson are unlikely to wash with him. With a female author, this book was probably geared more toward women than toward men and therefore, unlikely to have impressed the male patient in the ambulance. However, what she had written struck a cord in me. For example, on the cover is a photo of a young muscular man controlling a sailboat at speed. Although I had never sailed in my life, I can still see a connection between this marine activity and international backpacking.

Although, I refer to my travels as backpacking, during those early years, if I say that the luggage I was carrying throughout the 1970s was a suitcase rather than a rucksack, then how the term is defined, I leave it to the reader. But to me, backpacking is defined as a constant move from one destination to the next, rather than staying at just one hotel throughout the entire vacation, as was the 1972 Spanish getaway, which is defined as a package holiday.

With the breakup of our relationship in 1972, a bid to explore the world was the answer to such feelings of foreboding. This is where the difference lies between the ambulance patient and me. Rather than escape into a world of oblivion, the desire to travel demanded determination and hard work. Literally.

The factory making ball-bearing races (the two rings in between the tiny balls roll) closed during the Autumn of 1977 to transfer over to Plymouth in Devon, making us all redundant except for the few machinists with the greatest skills. After working there for over four years and putting in weekend overtime to save up for the first trip across the Atlantic, I was advised to apply for a post at British Aircraft Corporation in Weybridge, Surrey. These works covered a much larger area than the former works and had a larger number of employees. And the wages were good, despite a daily commute from Bracknell to Weybridge by train.

As such, I was able to work hard and save up hard for my next trip, this time wholly within the USA, in the following year, 1978. This trip, built on the experience of the last trip, was to be a life-changer.

But first, the renewal of the entry visa after the first one had expired after a year. With experience behind me, it wasn't difficult for the personnel officer of BAC to write an official letter endorsing my employment with them. So, off to the Embassy in London once again. This time, it was straightforward. I was already on their records. With no further ado, I walked out of the building with a multiple-entry visa lasting the life of the passport, stamped inside. With quite a few years of validity left on the document, plus an agreement made in the 1980s between our PM Margaret Thatcher and the current US President Ronald Reagan for the Visa Waiver Scheme to be put in place, this meant no more visa applications ever, despite three more trips to the USA after 1978. They were in 1995, 1997, and 1998.

Both in 1978 and 1995, I stood here, Colorado River.

Summary of the 1978 Trip to the USA.

Having given a day-to-day running commentary of both Israel 1976 and North America 1977, this time I wish to centre this and future trips on the highlights. This is due to both 1976 and 1977 being first-time experiences, yet each so different from the other. By contrast, all five trips to the USA are very similar, hence of no need for day-to-day repeats. Also, the 1997 journey on the Australian Pacific Coast from Cairns to Sydney had taken the same formula - a bus pass valid for unlimited travel for some time. The same applies to Israel in 1993, 1994 and 2000. Although each was slightly different in detail, each was also broadly the same as the initial 1976 experience.

Being the case, from now on, instead of concentrating on one particular trip, I will jump from one to another when it's called for. For example, the Grand Canyon. I hiked this natural wonder twice, the first in 1978 and the second time in 1995. They were the same hikes but each had some differences that are worth mentioning together.

When I arrived in Toronto, the first item I had to buy was a Kodak 110 Instamatic camera to replace the one given to me by Dad which broke down during the outbound flight. All the photos from the 1977 trip were taken with the Instamatic. But for the 1998 trip, I made a decision to try transparencies or slides shown on a projector and thrown onto a screen as a dramatic image fitting a slide show for family and friends. Therefore, the photos published here are mainly from the 1995 trip, as for example, the Grand Canyon does not change in appearance over seventeen years! Also, the Instamatic failed to take good photos at the most crucial part of the hike, mainly due to poor daylight, and this was the reason why I repeated the Grand Canyon visit in 1995 in the first place. I wanted a photo album of such an adventure and I was prepared to take risks in repeating the challenge.

However, the bus route taken in 1978 was very different from the 1977 route. On the second trip, not only had I landed in New York instead of in Canada, but the Greyhound Americruiser route was a much longer figure-of-eight course starting at Port Authority Bus Station and taking in St Louise Missouri, Amarillo Texas, Flagstaff Arizona, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland Oregon, Denver Colorado, St Antonio Texas, New Orleans Lousiana, Miami Beach Florida, and then back north to New York. Like on the previous trip, my arrival in New York from Miami Beach was on the morning of the same day I took off back to London a month after my arrival, with the day spent on the roof of one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

On the 1978 trip, I spent more nights on a bus than on the previous trip. There were two reasons for this. First, I should have brought more funds. Like in 1976, I made a miscalculation on how much to take in Traveller's Cheques. This was due to not taking into consideration the rate of inflation over the past year. But rather than panic, I used the experience to learn how to travel on a shoestring. And travel on a shoestring I did, and not only did I have an astonishing experience, but I took in a much wider scope of the USA than I could ever imagine.

How a French Air Traffic Control strike brought hysteria.

The day finally arrived for me to depart. Excited but very nervous, this time I made my own way to the airport by train. After arrival, I checked in as normal, aware that there is a French Air Traffic Control strike affecting all flights into France and all routes passing over France, such as to Spain, Italy and much of the rest of Europe, and maybe some long-haul flights for Asian countries and beyond. Only the Americas were unaffected.

At the boarding gate, we waited there for the Jetsave agent to let us through. Opposite our gate was one for a flight to Spain. A crowd of people were standing there waiting to board. Apparently, they should have boarded the previous evening, but a night spent alternating between the gate and the departure lounge has worn their patience to razor-thin. And it showed.

Just then, the tannoy came to life with a request for all on this particular flight to Spain to return to the departure lounge, just as the Jetsave agent arrived to allow us to board our transatlantic flight.

Suddenly there was a scream, a loud masculine scream of demonic rage and frustration coming from a young man of about my age. As the crowd began to saunter back to the departure lounge, this man was lying on the floor, beating it with his fists and screaming out his rage. I pitied him as I walked down the steps to board a transfer bus to the waiting aeroplane. I couldn't take my mind off him as I settled in my assigned seat, looking out of the window and watching others alighting from the bus to climb the steps to board, including a tour group. I was relieved when the plane finally took off for New York Kennedy Airport.

I sat next to the window and the port side of the plane. As I looked down at the Irish Sea directly below, I gasped as if with astonishment. For a glancing moment, I thought I saw an outline of a submerged settlement just before the east coast of Eire came into view. Oh well, just put it behind and let's look ahead.

Arrival in New York.

Once having arrived at New York airport, I was preparing to board a shuttle bus to Manhattan, when a young man from the same flight took a liking to me. He told me that he was heading straight to San Francisco and asked me whether I would be willing to accompany him all the way. I refused, even though San Francisco is on my agenda. I was slightly bothered. If he wanted to go straight to California, then why didn't he fly direct to San Francisco? Jetsave does flights to all major cities in North America.

New York as I've known it - before 9/11. Taken 1998. 

The journey into Manhatten was trouble-free, and I managed to find what looks like a seedy hotel on 8th Avenue and West 44th Street in a district apparently inhabited by Afro-Caribbeans. Indeed, the receptionist of the hotel was a young Afro-Caribbean, but he welcomed me as he assigned me a room upstairs. I entered the room, only to find beetles running across the floor as if my entry had disturbed them. There seems to be a lot of commotion outside with the wailing of sirens. If only I was aware! At one of the city skyscrapers was a fire, and fire engines blocked the street from traffic as they attempted to put the fire out. But having jet lag. being six hours behind British Summer Time, the only energy I had was to crawl into the rather manky bed and get some sleep.

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Next Week: Travel has no time for nursing phobias.