It’s obvious isn’t it? We’ve had thirteen years of cuts and wage depression. We’ve already had creeping privatisation. They don’t want it to work do they?
We’ve got massive staff shortages with nurses and doctors leaving for far better pay and conditions in places like Australia. We have massive waiting lists.
Staff are burn out and at the end of their tether.
The government makes no move to settle the disputes or put right the problems they have created. They want it to fail and the public to lose confidence. Then they’ll sell it off, lump by lump, to the American health companies. The Ministers will walk off with fat bonuses and we’ll have what they have in the USA – a very expensive system that works brilliantly for the wealthy but if you are poor you can forget it – you die!
They are doing the same with education.
They’ve already done it with power, transport, water, housing and the post office. Short-term gain, long-term loss. How’s that all going? Low pay for workers, higher prices, fat bonuses for bosses, poor service and sewage in the rivers!!
There were numerous rumours and tales constantly going round the boat. According to popular legend at least half the passengers had already died by the time we left the Falklands though I could not see any noticeable thinning of the attendees in the dining room. The average age of the passengers was seventy five, (the result of being away from home for fifty five days – people could not take time off work!) and so one would expect an attrition rate. Some of these intrepid travellers were in their nineties! Many had suffered heart attacks and strokes that precluded them from flying yet were gamely heading off into jungles with Zimmer-frames and sticks. You had to admire their pluck and determination. There were macabre tales and jokes circulating regarding the bodies being stored in with the frozen vegetables, or being buried at sea in the dead of night, or the number of cabin upgrades suddenly available.
There certainly were deaths and the nearest estimate was seven – though this was impossible to verify because the ship deigned to release any information on the subject. All we had to go on was rumour and observation. There were three emergency evacuations from the ship off the coast of Brazil. One was a crew member. They were stretchered off into tenders and off to hospital. As far as we could tell one person had succumbed to a bite they had received in Brazil. It had gone septic and killed them. Another head-butted a tram and went into a coma and later died. At a few ports there were ambulances lined up to discretely whisk away the victims.
The dreaded medical room was like a mythical house of horror. It lurked just down the corridor from our room and was the source of a whole series of rumours. The first rumour was that a single trip to the doctor resulted in a bill for at least £300. That resulted in many people putting up with hacking coughs that went on and on, who normally would have visited their GP, but were terrified of visiting the ship’s medical crew. That probably helped spread the disease throughout the ship. The second rumour was that they demanded payment upfront and you had to sign a form before treatment. The third was that some people had bills of £30,000 plus and that the ship was supplementing the cost of the cruise through the medical costs.
Well I don’t think the ship was lining its pocket from the poorly. I think they had merely tendered out to a private company. What we were experiencing was the result of private health care. Being from England, with free medical attention, this seemed incredibly expensive and scary.
Unfortunately we both succumbed to the hacking cough that was making the rounds. We were up all night with involuntary paroxysms of pulmonary irritation. We had sore throats and temperatures. And it went on and on and was threatening to ruin our experience. We ran out of lemsip and paracetamol. We bought cough syrup and medicines from the cities we visited. Nothing shifted it. In desperation Liz decided that she had to go for treatment. I decided that I needed to accompany her. I hadn’t had mine for as long but I was feeling crap.
With great trepidation we headed down the corridor towards the room of doom. After all – we were insured.
We sat in the waiting room expelling air in spluttering bronchiole mucus infested spasms. The white suited receptionist took down our details and checked on her computer, presumably double-checking that we were insured. I passed the time by reading the list of charges. The first thing that stood out was the cost of a consultation. It was £100.
Too late now – we were hooked.
We signed the sheets and one at a time were ushered in.
That genial and effervescent Romanian doctor was astute. He said we both had coughs. He said that they were different though. He took blood to test.
Liz’s cough was a chest infection. It needed treating with antibiotics. She left with a set of pills and some codeine.
My blood results indicated raised leucocyte levels. I had a worse lung infection than Liz. I required a greater degree of treatment.
Once in the system I became quiescent. Who was I to argue with the doctor? Hang the cost? I was too ill to argue. I quietly acquiesced as a cannula was fitted into my arm and antibiotic was dripped into my body. I was connected up to the nebuliser and breathed in the vapour through a mask. I was then given a session of oxygen. This lasted for two hours and was repeated four times over the course of two days.
I admit to finding myself mulling this treatment over as I lay on the bed in the medical centre while the treatment was administered by a competent male nurse. Did I really need a nebuliser and oxygen? Was I that bad that I needed antibiotic through an intravenous drip? I couldn’t help thinking that if I was back home I’d have been lucky to come out with an antibiotic at all. It would probably be a cough syrup, paracetamol and bed rest. Ho hum.
The affable doctor, discovering I was a biologist, came in to show me his incredible photos of insects and spiders. They were spectacular. You could see every hair and spiracle – very sharp and detailed.
Liz’s bill was indeed £310. Mine was a chilling £2,900. Still it worked. We both rallied quickly.
I had a chat with the doctor about the treatment. He assured me that it was necessary. We were both emergencies. Cruising was different to being on land. He pointed out that we were thousands of miles from home and a good distance from the Brazilian shore. If we had worsened and required emergency evacuation the costs would have easily exceeded £30,000.
I suppose he had a point. But it did nothing to dent the passengers fears of medical intervention – the room of doom had a reputation to live down.
For some reason the journey back across the Atlantic only took three days this time. Perhaps the captain was in a hurry to get home?
We were heading for Cape Verde – that volcanic archipelago off the coast of Africa. This time it was Santiago and its capital Praia. But that was three days away.
The captain thought that we might get bored so they put on quizzes and organised a chocolate event. I slunk away for the quizzes and read or wrote elsewhere but I was intrigued by the chocolate. I am a nascent diabetic and alcoholic. I show no signs of being either but I think it is something you have to work on. Chocolate was, as the Incas well knew, the food of the gods. Wine is the drink of the gods.
I was expecting big things. What I got was chocolate cakes in every shape and size. That was OK but I found that there is only so much chocolate that even I could consume.
What I was more taken with were the amazing sculptures the cook put together using fruit and vegetables. He was quite an artist. He also did these remarkable ice sculptures. It was quite incredible, in the heat of the tropical sun, to see a guy attack a block of ice with a knife – ice shards spraying in all directions, and end up with a couple of intertwined birds or fish. He did it so quickly.
There were great sunsets but the journey was choppier than it had been on the way across when the sea had been silken. It seemed troubled. We soon lost the boobies and there were few sightings of whales, turtles or dolphins. But the sun still shone and we were in the tropics. Life was good.
The coffee machine – the most important bit of equipment.
We went up to the bridge and had a go at steering the ship. It was easy. I’d quite like being the captain. You just told people what to do, sat in your seat with your cap on, and everyone did it. From what I could see the boat was being commanded by a young guy with a pair of binoculars.
The radar was good. You could see all around for tens of miles. It could even pick up whales. It confirmed my suspicions. We were all alone in the middle of the Atlantic. There wasn’t even another vessel over the horizon and even the whales had buggered off.
I am presently rewriting the Antitheist’s Bible (a novel that is anti all organised religion). Enjoying it.
Here’s a little extract:
Some say that life is a journey into the mysterious unknown. I’m not so sure about that. My observations lead me to believe we are creatures of habit. It takes dynamite to get most of us out of our comfort zones and the rut we have worn into our existence. Mystery and the unknown rarely come into the equation.
The trouble is that for most of us life has a habit of getting in the way of our plans. Life goes by. We happily slip into routines. Every day the sun comes up, the alarm rings, we get up and go through more of the same. We know what pattern the day takes. We know what is going to happen next week and the week after. We have our watches, diaries and calendars to plan the future. We watch the wonderful programs in which physicists prove that the universe is not how it appears, matter is not solid, space and time are bent, we are but holograms, while psychologists demonstrate that our perception and memories are a million miles from reality. We are enthralled. Yet the sun still comes up and each day is the same as the next.
But then it changes.
We are confronted with a different reality. A close friend dies, you lose your job, you move house, you become ill, there is a fire, a burglary; it could be a number of things. Life changes. Some changes are minor, some temporary. We are thrown and have to adjust.
The amazing thing is not that we are so thrown by things but how quickly we adjust to the new situation and build in our new routine.
We are creatures of habit. We search for new patterns. That’s what we are programmed to do; we search out the patterns; we hunt for the relationships. It is hard-wired into our brains. It is the product of evolution. It is the very reason we are so successful. Our ancestors survived because of how they found the patterns and relationships; were able to determine the seasons and migrations, the habits of predators and prey. That is what they have bequeathed to us.
Propelled to the finish line by the millionaires they represent! By the media they’ve bought and control! By the gullible fools who don’t know their history! By the ignorant masses who haven’t got a clue! By the witless who do as they are told!
I was suffering from a feeling of despondency. At the beginning of the trip those fifty five days had stretched out before me like an infinite universe. I had not been sure if I would enjoy the motion of the boat, the relentless drone of the engines or being confined to a small ship and the company of an assortment of humanity. I thought I might find the tiny cabin claustrophobic and the endless days boring. But there were the delights of those destinations to look forward to. Well there were lots of things about this trip that I had grown used to and thoroughly enjoyed. I felt as if the cabin was home. The motion of the sea and constant drone was soothing. I had greatly relished having time to read, write and think without the constant distraction of chores or people to contact. In the middle of the ocean you could not communicate with people and if something went wrong at home there was nothing you could do about it. That was a weight lifted. There was a freedom to cruising and being pampered – meals and drinks on demand. I was enjoying it. But we were running out of destinations and soon would be running out of sun.
News back home was of cold, rain and snow.
I sat on the deck with my book, visited the Jacuzzi, wrote a few pages and contemplated our last visit to Brazil – probably the last time we would ever come back.
As we approached Natal the sun was rising, filling the sky with pink, orange and mauve. By the time we were passing under the famous suspension bridge it was already up and the light was bright. The tub brought us in to dock and I peered over the rail. On one side was the sky-scrapers of Natal with its traffic and hordes. On the other was the verdant mangrove swamp. I knew which side I preferred.
We knew what we wanted to do – we were off to see the biggest cashew tree on the planet.
On the way through the city we saw the familiar tall buildings of concrete and glass, the new concrete evangelical churches, and ubiquitous graffiti. Natal looked a bit more prosperous than most places in Brazil. There did not appear to be either shanty towns or favelas – but then perhaps they were in another part that we weren’t driving through.
We headed out of the city on a highway and into green fields and countryside. We stopped briefly to see the Brazilian contribution to the space race. There was a launch site for satellites complete with a very slender missile, which looked little more than one of the ten penny rockets I used to buy as a kid, and a device that looked as if it sent out death rays.
Eventually we reached our tree. It was not quite how I had imagined it but was very impressive none-the-less. The tree was a low sprawling affair – about twenty feet high but covering the area of a football pitch.
We made our way through the myriad of stalls selling everything from snacks, coconut drinks and coffee to cashew nuts and trinkets. There was no time to shop; we had branches to peer at.
There was a path laid out so that you could walk in a circular fashion under the whole tree. Above my head the branches interlaced and dived back to the ground. The tree went on and on, dipping and rising. It was very impressive – like being in the middle of a giant rhododendron bush!
At the end we climbed up on to a platform that enabled us to look out over the whole huge expanse of the tree. It was a great green mass of bright leaves. I bet it produced a pound or two of cashews. There were brown lizards charging around fighting with each other and defending territory. I guess we had come in the mating season!
We sampled a cashew juice drink supposedly high in antioxidants and bought enough cashew nuts to sink the ship. Then we headed for the beach and a welcome cooling coconut or two.
The beach was a long expanse of yellow sand with bright beach umbrellas but of more interest to me was the black volcanic rock that formed reefs at intervals along it.
Back in Natal we went along the beach to the fort that stood at the entrance to the port. There was a shelf of volcanic rock alive with sea birds.
The Atlantic pounded in with crashing rollers that sent spray up into the air. I noticed they had one of those goddesses of the beach here as well.
Perhaps they had them everywhere in Brazil. It was a superstitious country. Those beaches were very beautiful. I wasn’t sure about the way they built their high-rise apartment blocks on the edge of the beaches – but that was Brazil. The temperature was hot – the breeze pleasant – the people friendly. I would have like to have stayed longer and chilled out; to have bathed and soaked it up. I would have liked to have gone inland and checked out the jungle and wild-life. Brazil was a violent place but it was also the place for lovers.
And that was it. Our South American adventure was at an end.
We had three more stops on the way home but they felt to be like fillers. We were leaving Brazil and South America.
Once again the timing was immaculate. There was a party on deck and the samba beat belted out as we glided under that huge suspension bridge. Two little boys were in the middle of that bridge as we passed under and they waved us away. I waved back.
The sun was setting. It was setting on us, on South America and on our voyage.
As we passed I looked back along reef along the beach and the fort where we had walked. I looked back at the bridge as it receded with the sun setting behind it. It seemed appropriate.
I could see that bridge in the orange light for a long, long time.
Goodbye Brazil.
There were eleven days still to go and three more destinations, that was as much as most people had as a whole vacation, but it felt as if the adventure was already over. we were on the return leg.
We were heading for Mexico City by van. I’d sorted the route. It was left at the top of our road.
We were going to travel from Los Angeles to San Diego and then straight along the main pan Mexican highway to Mexico City. We had three kids in tow and a tent but that van was going to be our home for a couple of weeks. It was a thousand five hundred miles.
The Mexican border was the first spot of interest. We went in on a six lane highway and out on a dirt road.
At the customs hut we were pulled over by three surly guards. The first guard told us that he might have to search the van for drugs. I protested. I was hardly likely to be smuggling drugs into Mexico, was I? The guard was unmoved. He pointed to a bunch of cars and vans that had been previously subjected to a similar procedure. They had been ripped to shreds. All the seats, upholstery, roof, panels had been ripped out and slashed to pieces. They had even had their engines removed. It did not bode well. I was imagining what I was going to say to the American teacher we had borrowed the van off.
But then the guard suggested that for a small fee he could make us exempt. I slipped him twenty dollars. He told me that there were three of them. I passed the others notes across.
Petrol in Mexico was half the price of the US so we’d come across with an empty tank. When we’d exchanged our dollars the miserable Mexican exchanger had refused to give us any small notes. We had been given large denomination notes worth fifty pounds. I thought that we would get some change from the garage. We filled up with petrol and I handed one of the notes over. A full tank had only set us back about ten dollars. He gave me around five dollars’ worth of change in a bunch of small currency notes. I protested vehemently. I couldn’t speak Spanish and he pretended not to understand English. I pointed to the price on the pump and demanded the rest of the change. Unrepentant and without a hint of embarrassment he handed me a few more notes. It took another three protests and a lot of angry exchanges before he finally coughed up the right money. He was totally unfazed by the whole scam.
The road, the main arterial road through Mexico to Central America, was a two lane job. It was the major highway for all commerce. There were big trucks roaring up and down it. But it was lousy. You would be driving along at full pelt, round a bend and it would disappear into a dirt track. We would bump and career along for a while before the tarmac would reappear. Obviously some municipal council had not paid their taxes. It was no wonder the whole road was punctuated with shrines to dead motorists. The drivers using that death-trap of a thoroughfare were crazy.
In way of illustration, one day we’d stopped at the side of the road to grab some lunch. A car travelling at high speed, swerved off the road, careered through the undergrowth right to the side of us without slowing and then scuttled back on to the road in a screech of wheel-spin, enveloping us in a cloud of dust. We were in shock.
But hey, much to the amazement of our neighbours, who were sure we would be killed by bandits or smashed to pulp on the road, we made it to Mexico City and back in one piece.
