In Norway I had had great fun with glaciers, and had added some Swiss fun to that a few years later. My first thought was to add to that, but I found out that glacier courses and/or hikes tend to be short; I would need as much travelling time to get to a glacier and back as I would have on top of it. That sounded tedious! I checked Norway, Iceland and Greenland. And then I realised I could just as well go to Greenland to walk on rock instead of ice. Greenland was on my wish list either way around! So during Easter I spent quite some time trawling through sites of mountain guide organisations and the likes. And after I had picked one I spent most of a Saturday booking flights and accommodation; the trip would start on Iceland, and I would have to get there, and spend several nights. I felt really good about it; the boring stuff had been done! Now the anticipation could start. But that was not how things panned out.
I had got nervous as when I booked, the trip wasn't guaranteed yet. And no confirmation had come in in the meantime. After my trip to the Netherlands I mailed them again to ask how things were looking. Good, they said. They would say that, wouldn't they?
While I was in Laugharne I got the feared email; the trip had been cancelled. Shit! Could I change any of my bookings? In Laugharne I could do little; I spend about 12 hours a day either in the field or in our lab, where I tend to get zero phone and/or internet signal. Elsewhere it was a little better, but I decided to wait until I would be back.
The last time I had a proper holiday was two years ago, in Scotland with my sister, which only had three takers, so that one had almost been cancelled... and now this time things landed just on the wrong side of this line!
Few days were left between Laugharne and cruise, but the first few were tainted by checking reservations, phoning airlines and travel organisers, emailing insurance companies, phoning airlines again, phoning airlines again, phoning travel organisers again, doing a renewed trawl on internet for accommodation, and all that shit which costs a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of frustration, which I had tried to avoid. Oh well. It will work out in the end! And I know this was an incident and organised travel doesn't have to be such a pain, but still, I'm not very encouraged in this revolutionary plan of actually having a proper, elaborate holiday... by the time you have finally managed to book it you need two!
Will I get to see this this summer? Pic by Hgrobe
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