Travel Biography - Week 56.

Preparing for the 1995 Flight to New York

The day before I returned home from Israel in 1994, I stood on the crest of the Mount of Olives looking west towards Jerusalem. As I pondered over my future and wondered whether I'll be returning, I had a kind of vision. This was to make another journey to the USA sometime in the following year, the third trip in my life so far. I believed this was something of a divine revelation. Exactly a year to the day after flying home from Tel Aviv on September 5th, 1994, on the same day in 1995, I was on board the plane heading west to New York.

Manhatten Skyline from Central Park, 1995.

Even while I was contemplating the trip whilst on the hill, I knew why I wanted to fly back to the States. I wanted to revisit the Grand Canyon and hike the Bright Angel Trail over again. But this time, the hike was not the end in itself, as it was previously, but this time a means to an end. On the first trip in 1978, my camera failed whilst I was deep inside the valley and next to the Colorado River. This time, I wanted to make sure that my mission was made complete - the return to the UK with a pile of photos good for an album. Photos I treasure right up to the present day.

After arriving home from Israel, one of the first things I need to find out was whether I need to return to the US Embassy in London for visa renewal. This could prove difficult, as a document of proof that I was working for a British company was required before a visa was granted. By 1995, I have been self-employed already for fifteen years. However, having held a valid visa in the seventies might have given me an advantage, on the other hand, not having an employer could have scuppered my application.

I wasn't aware that during the 1980s, our Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and US President Ronald Reagan hammered out an agreement - the Visa Waiver Scheme, which means that all that was required for entry for a maximum of three months was a green card, which was given out mid-flight and filled in by the time I arrived at the passport control at J.F. Kennedy Airport. Thus, form filling, getting official documents, extra trips to London and waiting around and wondering whether my application was successful or not, a bane for the 1977 and 1978 transatlantic trips, were all avoided, making preparation so much easier and tourism more appealing.

An excellent Travel Agent which I discovered by chance while I was at Kensington High Street, was Trailfinders, a business originally set up to help Australians working or studying here in the UK return to their homeland without the need to pay an exorbitant airline price. However, with an ever-growing market for long-haul travel already at their fingertips, it didn't take long for the business to capitalise on cheap flights to distant destinations around the world. And that includes selected cities in the United States. It was here at Trailfinders that I learned about the Visa Waiver Scheme, as long as I tell them where I'll be spending my first night.

One necessity was a pair of strong hiking boots I bought from Millets Camping Stores several months before take off. In the months preceding the hike, I had to break the boots in. This I did in the summer evenings after I'd finished a day's work. From my apartment, I set out on a long walk of three to four miles, to exercise my leg muscles as well as breaking in the boots. However, what I didn't realise was even with the training, I was already overestimating my abilities, a dangerous situation if deep inside the Canyon. I recall one female hiker who was rescued by a ranger in 1978. Her mule overtook me whilst ascending out of the gorge. Annually, up to a dozen fatalities occur within the Grand Canyon National Park.

However, I kept up the training. Although I was beginning to feel better about myself after the 1994 disaster, I was by no means over it. Anger, fear, regret, and general sadness still form an emotional vortex within my soul as I kept on wondering why all that happened to me and what were the reasons for them all.

Also purchased was a new rucksack, one of a full body length. It was designed to carry everything I need for the entire journey. Rather than hire a lightweight knapsack like I did in 1978, I was to carry this heavy load down into the Canyon. Little did I know that the left luggage lockers found in all Greyhound Bus terminals in the seventies were removed during the 1980s for security reasons. Hence, fully laden, this would have a profound effect on the hike. 

The excitement for the coming trip helped me cope with my emotional state. After my 1994 flight home, I returned to my church, back then, Ascot Baptist Church led by our former pastor, the late Barry Buckingham and his team, and managed to settle in as a regular member.

Just two weeks before take-off, my airline tickets arrived in the post along with the Greyhound Ameripass ticket valid for a full month. However, throughout the seventeen years since my last trip to the States, various changes were made. One was the Ameripass ticket itself. In the seventies, this was in a form of a book of vouchers, with each voucher torn off when boarding the bus to commence a fresh leg of the journey. In 1995, there was one single voucher which was kept on me until its expiry at the end of the holiday. Thus, the need to renew the book halfway through the month's trip became obsolete.

Turtle Pond, Central Park, 1995.

Another big change over the years was the style of accommodation. I wanted to carry the experience of hostelling into the States. Especially when it came to buying ingredients for a meal, cooking (and socialising with others in the kitchen) and enjoying the meal in the member's dining room. Indeed, this experience was meant to be quite different from the seventies, when I stayed in hotels and ate at the Greyhound Terminal restaurant.

Also, the itinerary would be different in 1995 from the seventies trip. Instead of starting and finishing at the same venue (Toronto in 1977, New York City in 1978) this time, I would begin in New York and finish in San Francisco, a one-way journey that would allow for longer stops at selected venues. 

Also, a couple of weeks before take off, I dialled New York in an attempt to reserve a bed at one of the city's hostels. There were quite a number of them. What a shock it was when I was told by the receptionist that on that particular date (the evening of September 5th, 1995) all the beds were taken. I felt very discouraged. However, when I asked, realising the season was coming to an end and whether beds should have freed up once the summer vacationers had returned home, I was told that September saw a peak in the backpacker population, as many of them had ended their summer work contracts and were roaming across the country as tourists before returning home or to college. Therefore, I was left to the old hotel bed-hunting tactics after arrival. 

Arrival in New York.

September 5th 1995 arrived at last. Unlike in 1978, there were no industrial disputes affecting flights, and mine took off from London Heathrow on time. The transatlantic flight was smooth and itself a pleasant experience, and also therapeutic. It was exactly a year to the day after boarding a plane at Tel Aviv Airport for a flight home while feeling in a wretched and broken state. Also, it's worth noting that spending a night in London was very beneficial when it came to arriving at the airport in good time. In 1994, I spent a night at YHA St Pauls, in the heart of the City. In 1995, I also arrived in London a day earlier and spent the night at YHA Earls Court. I was surprised by how long the Piccadilly Line Underground journey took to transport me from Earls Court Station to Terminal 3 of Heathrow Airport. But with a morning take-off, I couldn't afford the risk of a journey to the airport direct from Bracknell.

The plane finally landed in New York after over five hours of an airborne journey. Some distance to my left (hence, to the south) another airline was also flying from London to New York, and it kept up with us. The other airline landed first, then us. As a result, after alighting, I found myself at the back of a slow-moving queue for passport control, with two planeloads of passengers, each waiting to have his passport stamped.

At the arrivals lounge, the first thing I need to do, after arriving in Manhatten, was to look for a bed. Therefore, with the help of an American Hostel guide I had on me, I arrived at a couple of backpacker hostels. Both of them turned me away, with the explanation that all the beds were taken. It was at the second hostel that the receptionist asked me if I had made a booking. When I admitted that I didn't, he was apologetic but not unkind in saying that he was unable to offer me a bed, as if he saw me as an ideal customer, yet had to be turned away for someone less desirable.

I knew that there was just one place left, a seedy-looking hotel on the corner of 8th Avenue and West 44th Street. This was the same hotel I stayed at seventeen years earlier in 1978, also straight after arriving in New York at the start of the holiday. I recall the cockroach city in my room, and it was either put up or walked out. My memory of where to find the hotel must have been good, as I had no trouble finding it. I took the chance and inquired at Reception.

I was served by an Afro-Caribbean like I was before and given the keys to the same room I occupied in 1978. This time, there weren't many cockroaches scurrying across the room, but I still saw one or two. Like in 1978, once I settled in, I was too tired to go back outside. That part of New York was quiet, almost deserted, quite unlike the night in 1978 when a fire at a city building created chaos, keeping the city alive and noisy well into the night.

The tiredness I felt was due to the five-hour time-lapse during the flight. Although I was now behind British Summer Time by five hours, my body clock was telling me it was bedtime. But I couldn't sleep. Instead, I was able to open the window and lean out towards the street outside. Directly in front of me were several shops, all closed and the shutters down. Nearest the corner of 44th Street was a liquor shop, or what we would call an off-license. Next to it was a pharmacy. And the third shop was Goldilocks Deli. It was at the latter that I cracked a smile. I realised that this was America. And I jokingly found it hard to believe that the average New Yorker can pronounce the rather fragile word, Delicatessen fluently. So it was cut short - Deli. I even laughed. If only I realised back then that the pharmacy was in the right place. Whether suffering a hangover from the alcoholic drinks sold at the off-license or suffering indigestion after scoffing at the product sold at the deli, the pharmacy had a cure for both!

However, later that night, a large group of young Afro-Carribeans arrived near the hotel and the late evening guffaws eventually deteriorated into a street brawl, with angry swear words shouted along the street crossing. Although the noise was disturbing, at least there was no sign of entry into the hotel. It was at this point that I stayed away from the window and crawled into bed. I didn't want any of them to notice my presence.

Weight gain since 1978, at Central Park, 1995.

The next morning, I arose and after a shower, vacated the hotel. Fully loaded with a heavy rucksack on my back, I made my way to Fifth Avenue and in one of its lofty banks, I cashed a Traveller's Cheque. Further on, I arrived at the British Consulate (not to be confused with the British Embassy in Washington DC). As I stood outside the Consulate, directly across the road and bang opposite, was Tie Rack, a British business. Typical, I thought. Along 5th Avenue, I continued walking, until A arrived at Central Park. It was here where I spent the next few hours. The Lung of New York. The peaceful serenity of Central Park was a recluse from the traffic noise and the city din of street life. Turtle Pond, with its quaint footbridge nearby, offered a scene as contrasting from Manhatten as any parkland could be.

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Next Week. The Journey to the Grand Canyon.

Travel Biography - Week 18.

Travel and Phobias Don't Mix.

Sometimes, travelling on a tight budget means finding yourself in an uncomfortable situation. Such was the case of finding myself in an upstairs room of a seedy hotel in the heart of Manhattan on the first night after landing. Squalid is the best way to describe this hotel room. Although the bed was properly made up and the sheets appeared clean, on the tiled floor beneath the bed, some cockroaches scurried across from one side of the room to the other, as if my presence disturbed them.

Generally speaking, I don't have much of an issue with insects, although a floor populated with Goliath beetles may be enough for me to make a quick exit. But facing a colony of bugs, none of them more than a centimetre in length, I had a choice. Either tolerate their presence or flee from the room. If I had fled, then what? A night spent in the street of an unfamiliar city? Or find a hotel that would dry up all my financial resources even before I step out of the city? Nope. It was neither. Instead, I just have to grin and bear it. And refrain from complaining at reception. At least I had a place to stay.

Night view from my New York hotel window, 1995.

Indeed, if a brochure advertising the hotel was available with the description of - a venue you always dreamed about and remember - hmm. Remember? Yes. But dreaming about it? Perhaps only in a nightmare, after eating cheese immediately before bed. I had to face it. This hotel was one of the worst I have ever stayed in.

Therefore, I pulled myself together and crawled into bed, shutting out the creepers from my mind. This was TRAVEL. Like when some of my friends warned me about rattlesnakes and other dangerous wildlife I might have encountered whilst hiking the Grand Canyon. Or that there was a huge, 4cm cockroach nestling in the washbasin after arriving at Amarillo in Texas, or watching a mouse scurry across the kitchen floor of a backstreet hostel in St Louis, Missouri.

It was like any fear I had to conquer the first time I ever had to climb a ladder on my own to inspect the outside of an upstairs window. No one was below to stand on the lowest rung. Rather, this ladder was an old wooden one I borrowed from the church I regularly attended. And it creaked and groaned as I climbed up.

That was my new job as a self-employed handyman-turned-window cleaner back in August 1980. Along with getting to feel at home up on a ladder, I also had to contend with a community of garden spiders - the type with short legs and a wide abdomen - as part and parcel of my job, along with a variety of bugs. Either that or remain on the dole and go hungry whilst struggling to pay the rent and bills. And believe me, living entirely on meagre benefits paid by the taxpayer was no honour!

Therefore, I remained in the Manhattan hotel room for the whole night whilst outside there seem to be some commotion. If only I felt alert enough to go outside and check for myself. Had I, I would have seen a building on fire with the street blocked with fire engines and red cars, along with a crowd of spectators. And that was what I saw the flowing morning after checking out of the hotel, except that by then the street was deserted.

That was 1978. This wasn't the last I see of the hotel. Rather, in 1995, I was at the same hotel and I believe, in the same room after landing at J. F. Kennedy Airport, and some failed attempts to find a vacant bed in one of the city's backpacking hostels. This time, I only saw a couple of bugs scurrying across the floor, an improvement from 1978. 

A Day in Manhattan.

I left the hotel and walked through a street where fire engines were parked outside a scarred, smoke-blackened building, I arrived at Port Authority Bus Station, the New York terminus of the Greyhound Americruiser reaching to all parts of the States as far as Los Angeles and San Diego. Here, I deposited my suitcase in a left luggage locker and booked an overnight seat on a bus bound westwards using the Ameripass, and after having breakfast at the station cafeteria, I was free for a whole day to check out the city. This was in 1978 but very much the same schedule was repeated seventeen years later in 1995.

This first visit included asking how to get to the Statue of Liberty, New York's most famous landmark and that of the whole of the USA, and known around the world, too. The statue was a gift to the nation made by A. Gustave Eiffel, who was also responsible for the famous Paris monument. I was directed by a subway ticket seller to a fast underground train and alighted at Battery Park, from where ferries sailed for both Statue Island and Staten Island.

Inside the head of the Statue of Liberty, 1978.

In 1978, entry to the inside of the Statue of Liberty was open to visitors all year round. A tight spiral staircase led to the inside of her copper head, which, by this time I was soaked in my own sweat. There was hardly any reward for a view, as the only opening was a grated slot at her headband crossing her forehead. With such restricted ventilation, the interior was a heat trap, and by 1998, when I visited the statue again, the interior was closed to visitors during the summer months, as the trapped heat brought illness, including fainting, to the more vulnerable victims.

Returning to Midtown, another famed landmark was Times Square, brightly lit up at night by a variety of neon adverts. Not truly a square in a traditional sense but more of a six-pronged star as West 45th Street intersects at right angles with 7th Avenue, and Broadway also intersects at a narrow-angle from 7th Avenue. In 1978, several cinemas were lining Broadway, all advertising XXX movies, and I wondered who would be entertained by such erotic films. However, by 1995, there seem to be far fewer of these theatres, either that or they have modestly been less showy.

Times Square, taken 1995.

Since 1978, I stopped in New York in 1995 and again in 1998. The 1995 visit was basically a replica of my 1978 visit, arriving from London in the evening, and after failing to find a bed at the city's several backpacker hostels, I remembered the hotel I stayed at my first arrival, and I found it without difficulty. As for the hostels, I was surprised at how full they were. It was early September when I arrived, purposely timed just after all the schools in the UK had re-opened after the summer break. But I failed to take into consideration that universities open later in the year, and September is the month when many students have ended their summer work contracts and were free to explore before returning home. So I was told by a hostel staff member.

And so, the first night of the 1995 trip was spent in the same hotel as in 1978. As I looked out of the window over 8th Avenue, across the road and to my right was Goldilocks Deli, a grocery store. I was amused by the name, typical American. Between times of quietness, groups of Afro-Caribbeans sauntered along the street, their Saturday night stint over as they made their way home. However, sometime later, a crowd of them began to amass just outside the hotel and a brawl broke out. I thought this was the right moment to make myself invisible and crawl into bed.

With such drama, who needs to be in a luxury hotel near a Mediterranean beach at the height of summer? This was much more exciting!

Back in 1978, it must have been a late afternoon or early evening when I boarded the night bus bound for Los Angeles, where my next city of call would be St Louis in Missouri. With the help of the departure board, like at any main railway station, I was able to work out my arrival into St Louis was to be by lunchtime on the next day.

On to St Louis, Missouri.

Both the 1978 and 1995 trips to the USA began with a bus journey of nearly a thousand miles or 1,620 kilometres, taking between 20-22 hours to complete. That's approximately a third of the USA from New York. It goes to show how huge the continent really is, especially when compared to the size of Europe. 

The Americruiser's final destination was Los Angeles but I chose to alight at St Louis, not only the first city across the Mississippi River but one with a remarkable monument, a 192-metre-high steel arch whose two stems are also 192 metres apart at its base, hence, the distance between its two "feet" is the same as the height of its apex.

St Louis Courthouse and Gateway Arch, 1995.

But a word on the journey itself from New York. It was the second longest bus journey in North America after the Winnipeg-Toronto route I completed the previous year in 1977. New York to St Louis is almost the same distance as London to Rome, and I recall the early to mid-1970s when travelling by train, along with a ferry crossing the Channel, was an adventure in itself, and indeed, I would use the same train route tomorrow if given the chance - ferry and all, instead of the Eurostar!

The train journey from London to Rome took about 24 hours to complete, give or take. This compares with the journey time on the Americruiser bus. This goes to show that despite the train being faster than the bus, the waiting times involved with the trans-Europe journey, especially when boarding the ferry, the wait before the continental train departing from Boulogne-sur-Mer, along with the two long stops at Paris, and then at Modane, before another at Torino, Genova, and other major cities on the way. 

The terrain east of the Mississippi was not unlike a typical English countryside, as the road passes through cities such as Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Columbus, and either Dayton and Indianapolis in 1978 or via Cincinnati and Louisville in 1995. Therefore, on both trips, I didn't consider exploring cities east of the great river. To me, America - the America that had inspired me - begins after crossing the Mississippi.

View of the Courthouse from the arch viewing gallery, 1995.

During the 1978 trip, I spent just a few hours in St Louis before boarding the evening bus to my next destination, rather similar to Chicago a year earlier in 1977. In 1995, however, I spent three days and two nights in St Louis before heading off. However, on both trips, my attention was centred on the Gateway Arch, the underground museum beneath the arch and the nearby St Louis Courthouse, where an 18th Century negro slave has bidden for his freedom. However, ascending the arch to reach the apex observation gallery was the most unusual means I had ever seen and experienced.

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Next Week: My Experience at St Louis and my approach to the Grand Canyon.