Leaving Peru for good - Quarantine in London.

 Once in my hotel room I called reception and they said they would sent a paramedic up, and I read through all the rules and regulations, and set up my laptop, realising that my charger was in one of the missing suitcases. Quick call to my daughter - luckily roaming was working on my Peruvian sim - and she ordered one to be sent to me (which arrived the following day delivered to the hotel!).

Then the paramedic arrived - who was a very nice young woman, but totally unsure what to do. Dressing changes were not part of their brief, and though she said that she COULD do it, she was unsure whether she was allowed to, so had to call her boss. He told her it was the responsibility of my GP to arrange this, and I should call them in the morning, but she did change the dressing for me. I was registered with a GP in the UK, but had not been to see them for over 3 years, and that was when I first registered at the surgery near to my daughter. I duly called them in the morning and they arranged for someone to call me back. Since they were in Bedfordshire and I was near Heathrow they could not do much, but suggested I try and get temporary registration with a GP close to Heathrow, and ask them for assistance, as clearly I needed a district nurse to come and do the dressing changes. They did express surprise that the resident paramedic (from a private service) appeared unable to help. I called the closest GP surgery, but they were unable to help, saying they could not send anyone in to a quarantine hotel, but suggested I called the paramedics back and insisted that it was their responsibility, especially since I had advised the hotel on my booking form that I needed assistance.

I called the paramedic again and it was the same young woman from the previous evening. She called my GP surgery and spoke to the nurse there, and spoke to her outside my room. When she returned she agreed to change the dressing, but again said that she was not really meant to do that, but would continue to do so. On Sunday she was a little concerned about the state of the wound so wrote a report and I was sent to the local hospital Accident & Emergency, where I was seated initially alone in a quarantine room before seeing a doctor. He said that the wound was "snotty" and didn't look too good, but cleaned it, gave me antibiotics, and some spare dressings, and was very angry that I was being given the run-around, when I clearly needed assistance. He told me I should insist that the paramedic do their job of providing due care to their patients, and if they refused I should come back to A&E for treatment!

The next paramedic I saw was different, and though he also said that this was not really within the scope of their "contract" with the quarantine hotel, he would do all he could to treat my wound. I did however have to order some dressings, wound cleaning supplies, and medication from a local pharmacy! Some of the paramedics I saw during the 10 days I was there used their own supplies, but others used the ones I had provided.

While all this was going on I was still without my baggage - only having what I was carrying in my hand luggage, and the white T-shirt provided at Heathrow! I called the baggage claim number and they said they would look into it, and would I call back the next day. I called back again and was given the same story - that they were looking into it. I was given a number I could use to track the claim online, but this showed nothing. Eventually after a couple of days hotel security called - they had heard about my baggage predicament and offered assistance. I gave them all the baggage tag numbers and flight details, and three hours later there was a knock on my door - they had located and collected my bags for me! Amazing service!

Surprisingly good evening meal - Lamb Curry, onion bhajis, Naan bread and fruit salad

Lunch - Soup and roll, Panini with cheese, bag of crisps and fruit salad.

Apart from this my stay was pretty uneventful, and ultimately quite pleasant. A lot was made in the press and online about how terrible the quarantine hotels were, especially the food - but I must have been one of the lucky ones, as I found the food to be very good, both in quantity and quality, and the choice was adequate. All in all, my stay was relaxing, and after the initial concerns about getting my dressing changed and lack of baggage were resolved, my new adventure could start back home in the UK. I was collected by my son-in-law on day 11, and finally reunited with my daughter over 3 years since we last saw each other!

View from my window towards Heathrow

Baggage fun at the airport

February 2013.

Before planning my trip to Peru I checked on the airline baggage allowance, especially as I was going for 6 months and wanted to take some fishing tackle along. 2 bags of 20 kilos each – so quite generous, but I still knew I would probably be heavy! Sure enough my 2 cases weighed in at 48 kilos – but then I was in for a shock! The check-in clerk told me that as my final destination was at a minor airport in Peru my allowance was the standard one suitcase weighing 23 kilos – meaning I had 25 kilos excess baggage to pay! She said I had to pay the excess on the whole journey, despite my protestations that surely it should just be on the final leg of the flight, as I was allowed 2 x 20 kilos from Brazil, to the capital of Peru, Lima. She went off to consult a supervisor.

I was a bit miffed as I could have opted for a bus from Lima to Trujillo, which would have meant the 40 kilo limit was right, but as that meant making my way from the airport to the bus terminal late at night, and a long wait (longer than the 7 hours I would have at the airport) for the next bus, I decided to take the easy way out!

The clerk returned and confirmed that I had to pay the excess for the whole flight and gave me a hand-written note to take to the airline desk, where there was quite a queue.  Half an hour later, and £250 poorer I was back at check-in (they had kept my baggage there), where I saw a different clerk, who had a supervisor with her. After a little consultation the supervisor got on the phone to someone else, and they decided that because my final destination was still in Peru, then the 40 kilo rule did, in fact, apply – so I only had to pay 8 kilos excess baggage! So it was back to the airline desk, another brief wait – caused mainly by the fact that, although there were 2 cashiers operating, it appeared that they did not have a cash drawer at the desk, but had to go into the back room to make change for every customer! I did get a refund and ended up paying around £80 for the excess baggage, but my cases were, this time, going through to Lima, and I didn't have to collect them, and check them in again, in Sao Paulo. (The last time I went the baggage tab showed Lima so I assumed they were going straight through, but no-one told me I had to collect them in Sao Paulo, so I went to check in without them and was sent off to look for them. As it was now a couple of hours after the plane had landed they had been removed from the carousel, and so I had an adventure finding them!)

Lima airport customs has a unique system for checking arriving baggage – rather than the red and green lanes (goods to declare, and nothing to declare), they have a single lane, and when it is your turn you press a button, and seemingly randomly there is a red or green light. Green means proceed, but red (which I got this time!) means you have to subject all your baggage, including hand baggage which was checked in Sao Paulo (and in my case also in Salvador) to an x-ray check. If the operator doesn't like what he sees then you are subjected to a full baggage search, which fortunately I avoided.

I still arrived in Trujillo pretty shattered, though, as it was 7.00am, after a 7 hour layover in Lima, and with the time-zone difference it meant I had been awake for 28 hours by the time I got to my hotel in Huanchaco!