Well, a certain friend known as Les Bridgeland jokingly suggested that I was actually going nowhere and would write a whole load of guff about travelling the world from a darkened room in Emmer Green. How I laughed when I got that e-mail, but it turns out that Les might have a fairly effecient crystal ball (which he should see the doctor about) because four days after my trip should have started, I am still in Reading.
I know this will turn into a great anecdote at some time in the future but at the moment I am still feeling like a prize idiot. How could anything go wrong on a trip planned by a woman who has had her rucksack packed for a month? The simple answer to that is that I had to fly via the USA to get to Lima. I turned up at Heathrow on 1 March and queued at the check-in feeling slightly nervous and feverish from lack of sleep only to be told most politely that my trusty passport, issued in Baku, is not machine-readable so I am not allowed to get onto a flight to the USA even though I was only due to spend four hours in Miami...
I wanted to curl up into a pathetic heap in the middle of Terminal 3 but a very efficient and kind BA woman would not allow me to do that. Instead of flying off on my adventure, I ended up heading back to Reading and giving poor Magda the shock of her life when I went into Tesco to replenish my empty fridge as she had dropped me off at the bus station that morning expecting not to see me for a year, then only a matter of hours later I was nudging my trolley into the back of her knees in Tesco, Reading.
The plan now is that my whole trip is deferred for a month, giving me time to get up to London to get a new passport - I start my Spanish course in April and get only a month to travel around Peru once my volunteer project is over, but the rest of the trip should be on schedule... however, after this false start I am more convinced than ever that I might need my friends to chip in and contribute to my bail fund at some point in the not-too-distant future. Ho-hum. Anyway, I hope this gives a few of you a good laugh. The moral of the story - avoid the USA!
Anyway, hope you'll all be checking in a month from now to see if it's second time lucky as I really don't think regaling you with tales of derring-do from Reading is really worthwhile.
