"The Great Escape"

Five months into pandemic and the dogs started to behave like cats eating only when they felt like it.

They'd eat from the table and nothing else.

Canine education went to the dogs; bad pun.

It is a known fact that dogs mimic their masters so I guess they were as confused as I was.

My hair continued to fall in unhealthy chunks, got to the point where I feared washing it because each time there was more hair left on the tub.

Was now permanently living in my PJ’s, had baked 30 cakes and not worn a bra in 155 days; a sure sign that things had gone definitely south.

Day 20

Day 150

A girlfriend texted and said: “likewise. I want to spend a whole day in a spa!” I want to work in a spa only fear they won’t take me in my present condition.

We were living at the end of a snow field in Patagonia. We did not see a soul for weeks not counting the guard making the rounds with a fierce-looking German Shepard, which only reaffirmed the gulag-like scenario playing in my head. Remember March? Seems like a century ago. In five months I aged five years and life fast-forward to 2024. One day I took out a pre pandemic sweater from the closet. It smelled so good, like belonging to another woman from another life that I did not dare put it on.

It was time to go.

Leaving Patagonia is not for the faint-hearted. Argentina’s been in deep lockdown since March 20. Nobody really knows why. Probably has something to do with Cristina's plans, or politics, which is the same. BA is 1800 kilometers away and you need a pretty good reason to get out of Dodge; like having to go take care of an elderly person. My sister lives in BA but hélas! she´s younger than me. And after BA where could we go? Peru is closed. Asked around and found that our resourceful European passports allowed us to “go back home (?) either Belgium or England”.

Belgium is small, so complicated. They wanted a test “but only 48 hours prior to your departure, and you cannot stay in BA more than 24 hours" and all sorts of stressful hurdles. Kafka. (What if we only get the results after our plane has departed?). England asks for a lot less. Being Anglos they have more practical attitude. You just fill a Locator Form and you are good to go. We then needed a place in London to quarantine for 14 days.

A girlfriend offered us a small flat. “I warn you. It’s tiny” (Are you mad?? I am like a Syrian refugee! A mattress below the stairs will do just fine!). In the end we found a plane that got us out of Patagonia. As it climbed I saw the first swatch of blue sky and knew we would make it.

Five days at my sister’s was like a spa. Eating food cooked for me, sleeping in a bed made for us and specially reveling in the sound of voices coming from the kitchen, a kitchen that appeared miraculously spotless every morning.

Off to empty Ezeiza Airport fitted with masks, visors and gloves, to board the spotless KLM flight manned by a bunch of stern nannies who kept everybody in line.

Still washed my hands every 30 minutes, wiped clean every surface and never touched anything in the lavatory

At Schipol Airport in Amsterdam I spot countless Asians ambling around zipped up in hamzat suits: I am sure they know something we don’t.

Arrival at Heathdrow is disappointingly uneventful.

12 hours later we a sitting in a luscious English garden in London* drinking Prosecco, having real mozzarella di buffala with cherry tomatoes, Romaine and radicchio salad and lovely coconut yogurt with raspberries; listening to planes flying overhead. I realize how much I have missed the sound. Today my friend sent me a masseuse.

I may never leave.

*” When a man is tired of London, he’s tired of life”. (Samuel Jackson 1777)