Travel in the Time of Cholera

Travel in the Time of Cholera

The 2006 movie, The Painted Veil is a glorious and poignant movie that for some reason I thought was called Love in the Time of Cholera. When I looked it up I realized my mistake. Love in the Time of Cholera is book written by Gabriel García Márquez that was made into a movie at about the same time (2007) and is set in Colombia in the same time, a time when Cholera ran rampant around the world. The differences between the pandemics of Cholera which have plagued the world over the last 200 years and the Coronavirus are that Cholera is mostly a scourge of the impoverished, not unlike Ebola, in that it springs from water and food pollution and wrecks its havoc on the intestinal system leading to severe dehydration. Coronavirus is a far more egalitarian pandemic in that it has little to do with poverty (other than from overcrowding like in the Brazilian favellas) and it is respiratory in nature.

          Both movies are fundamentally love stories about betrayal and redemption and forgiveness.  They run the panoply of deep human emotions and use the backdrop of medical pandemics to highlight a fundamental truth about human nature, that it is independent of external circumstances.  One would think that humans faced with biological annihilation might behave well, but that isn’t what happens.  Harshness of life serves to strip away the veneer of civility and leaves us with the rawest of human reactions and emotions.  People do not use pandemic disasters to improve their character.  They may be permanently changed and improved after the fact, but during the crisis, they are down to their core tendencies including pursuit of love and lust.  Some might even suggest that nature heightens the primordial urges to survive and procreate and perhaps drives minor tendencies to exaggerate themselves.  This may be what the authors observe and use to drive their plotlines.

          When I stopped for a cup of chile yesterday at a diner that was offering take-out service, the waitress, who recognized me from prior visits during normal times, thanked me for coming out.  It clearly made a difference to her that some brave (Stupid? Irresponsible?) souls like myself were continuing to give her a means of supporting herself.  I gave her a $20 bill for a $9.95 tab and told her to keep the change.  I am inclined to help people in need and I am generally a good tipper, but I must admit that I also thought that I would rather be the giver of cash than the taker of cash as we hear about all the germs that filthy lucre carries.

Kim and I were talking about how fortunate we were to be out here in San Diego rather than cooped up in a small apartment in lower Manhattan (where we would have been had this pandemic hit three months earlier). She offered the view that we would have packed up the car and driven out here under those circumstances. I recently saw a Facebook post from someone traveling in Utah. He noted that there were no hotels operating and he was forced to camp. I know that one of our neighbors out here said he was taking his kids out for the weekend to the desert in their RV. It occurred to me that RV’s may make a sudden comeback as they may be the only way that people can travel around the country and be assured of a place to stay. Tom Bodett and Motel 6 ain’t leaving no lights on for us these days.

I have already assumed the worst about 2020 travel plans. I give it 95% that my Daughter and her family will cancel their visit in mid-April. I give it 70% that my planned Silver Anniversary motorcycle gathering in southern Utah in mid-May will get kyboshed. I give it 60% that Cornell will postpone or cancel reunion in early June (it’s my 45th). I give it 50/50 that our big family trip to Krakow has to be cancelled. And, finally, I think we are down to 30% that the planned motorcycle trip to Spain and Portugal through the Pyrenees won’t happen (though the problem may be a willingness to get out ahead of the reservation anticipation). Luckily for travel planning, I suspect that everyone is in the wait-and-see mode right now, so the trick will be to stay flexible and nimble (never an easy thing when you are planning group trips). As soon as things start to abate, I expect that many of the older crowd (those of us with finite horizons) will jump back on the travel bandwagon with fervor. The younger folks may be back at it too, but more for pent-up party abstinence. My guess is that it’s the mid-life folks that will become more inherently cautious, recognizing that the important things in life need to be protected and they are the ones on point to nurture the young and simultaneously do their best to protect the aged.

This is the moment I have built to in this story where I want to discuss National Geographic. They, like everyone, are sending out nice emails to their subscribers about COVID-19. But that’s not all. Back in the bad old days, what National Geographic did was show us the world that we could not go out and see. It showed us head-hunters in Papua New Guinea and Indians with blow-darts in the Amazon. We saw Antarctic ice sheets and Reindeer running through the tundra of northern Scandinavia. Now, none of those are out of reach of the intrepid travelers…or at least they used not to be. Who knows when we are going to be back to going up the Congo on the African Queen?

          But wait, I followed my National Geographic email into the website to read a wonderful story about the “crannogs” of Scotland.  These were ancient gathering spots set on manmade islands in the middle of lochs. Imagine ancient Celts deciding that the only safe place to gather was in the middle of a lake where no one could get at them.  That brings a whole new meaning to the notion of social distancing. It’s a fascinating read ( https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2019/06/neolithic-island-older-than-stonehenge-crannog-scotland/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=crm-email::src=ngp::cmp=editorial::add=Compass_20200321&rid=38F0B73784E626D9934B46CB35618AE6 )

I am reminded of my early years in Costa Rica in that little tropical valley of Turrialba, where there was little to do (sound familiar?)  In this time of sequestration, I for one like the idea of engaging my long past interests in archeology and the sturdy of the past.  The mind can travel to places and times that we in the physical world cannot at this time.  I am adding National Geographic to my list of buy recommendations in this time of isolation.  Let’s go visit the imagination.