George Mahood - Travels with Rachel: In Search of South America

ONE

The U.S. customs officer eyeballed me, hisstony face devoid of any emotion. I was in deep trouble. I had not set foot inAmerica since overstaying my visa by two months, during an eightmonth roadtrip around the United States a few years earlier. There had been no problemspassing through customs when I left the country, my passport glanced at onlybriefly on the way out, but the world had changed since then and airportsecurity across the globe had tightened considerably. It hadnt even crossed mymind when my wife Rachel and I booked our flights to South America that I wouldonce again have to pass through U.S. security. We were in Houston, Texas for amatter of minutes before catching a connecting flight to Quito.

Theofficer looked down at the passport again and back up at me, his eyes now coldand menacing. Surely this was it? Reinforcements would be called, I would bemarched away by armed guards, interrogated for hours in a small cramped holdingcell, stripped naked, given a full body cavity search, and then if I waslucky put on the first plane back to England. Our travels would be overbefore we had even reached the South American continent.

Helooked down at my passport once more. This time studying it for a few secondslonger. He shook his head a little and raised his eyes towards mine. The edgesof his mouth twitched very slightly and then stretched slowly into a smile,which turned swiftly into a grin that spread across his entire face. He let outa booming laugh that echoed around the terminal and caused those in theadjacent queues to turn and look our way. Just when I thought things couldntget any worse, I now had a large audience to witness my humiliation.

He laughed again, thistime trying to disguise it with a cough, and a globule of snot rocketed fromhis nose onto the passport in his hand. He quickly wiped it off, and it was atthis point I realised he hadnt even been looking at my expired visa. He waslooking at my passport photo.

It was a photo taken atthe age of 17 during the year of my life that I had frizzy, shoulder-lengthhair. Shortly after the photo was taken I had my hair cut short, but hadsuffered the passport photo ever since. It was taken nine years previously. Iwas just a boy. A boy with really stupid hair. On every holiday since, I hadbeen quizzed or laughed at by officials who didnt believe that I was the sameperson pictured. It wasnt due to expire for another year. I had been sopreoccupied with worrying about my visa that I had completely forgotten aboutthe damn photo.

You have a nice daynow! said the officer, finally pulling himself together and handing me mypassport.

Let me guess, yourhair? said Rachel, as we hurried to catch our connecting flight.

Every bloody time! Atleast he didnt look at the visa. I cant wait until this passport expires.

It wasmidnight when we landed in Quito, Ecuadors capital city. Travellingwith only hand luggage, Rachel and I were the first into the arrivals hall after only a brief snigger at my passport photo from the Ecuadorian officials.We had expected the airport to be deserted in the middle of the night, but thesmall terminal was bustling with taxi drivers and tour operators fighting forour custom. From our limited research before coming to South America, it appearedthat rule number one when travelling in the continent was: DO NOT get into anyrandom cars. We had a room booked at a hostel but had not arranged anymeans of getting there, so pushed dismissively through the haggling taxidrivers to a small information desk at the far end of the building.

Taxi? Por favor, I said,in my basic Spanish.

Si. Taxis! said thelady, gesturing to the huddle of drivers who had followed us to the informationdesk.

Ah, no. Telephoniotaxi? I tried, with my thumb and little finger extended into the internationalsign language for telephone. Probably.

The lady shook her headand looked at me as though I had made the stupidest request in the world. Iwanted to whip out my Lonely Planet and show her the bit about being wary of unlicensedcabs. Who was I kidding? This was South America. We werent going to get veryfar if we stuck to the rules.

I guess we just pick oneof these guys, I said to Rachel. Who shall we go with?

Er... I dont know. Whatdoes a trustworthy taxi driver look like?

There was a smiling manto my right whose smile got even bigger when I pointed at him.

Yeah, he lookstrustworthy, said Rachel as we followed him outside to his cab. Good choice.

And hes small and old,I said. I reckon I could take him down if it came to it.

Rachel gave me a lookthat suggested she thought otherwise.

Hostal LAuberge Inn,por favor, I said to the driver.

Bueno, he said.

Ecuador was the first ofthree countries Rachel and I would be visiting in South America, the other twobeing Peru and Bolivia. We had our first nights accommodation booked, butnothing arranged from that point onwards. No accommodation, no tours and notransport, except our return flight back to the UK from Perus capital Lima insix weeks time.

Rachel and I becamefriends at school. We remained close and saw each other regularly during ourthree years at different universities a few hours apart. We finally became acouple towards the end of our final year of university, after I had alreadymade plans to travel across America with my friend Mark. Mark and I travelledthe southern United States together for three months, he returned home, and Iworked at a ski resort in Colorado for a few months, all the while trying topersuade Rachel to come to America to join me for the rest of the road trip.She eventually agreed, and we had an incredible few months exploring the back roadsof the northern United States together, sleeping in the back of our rustyshitmobile named Josephine.

Being apart for almostsix months and then travelling together in such a confined space had made ourrelationship stronger. A few months after we came home, we moved into a dampand mouldy one bedroom flat in downtown Northampton. A year later, we boughtour first house together, and 18 months after that we were married.

I had been working incharity fundraising, which sounds far more exciting and altruistic than it was.My job title was Data Information Officer, which combined three dull wordstogether to make for one exceedingly dull job. I was responsible for the accuracyof the names and the addresses of all those on the charitys database.

There were two clocks onthe wall in the communal office in which I worked. One was five minutes slow,the other five minutes fast. I timed my arrival to work by the slow clock, andwhen I left at the end of the day I went by the fast one. I effectively shaved10 minutes off every working day. Once 5 pm came around (or 4.55 pm), I wouldleave work, walk the 1.5 miles home, and then not have to think about my jobuntil 9am (or 9.05am) the following morning.

I was good at the job (afiveyearold could have been good at my job), and I tried to make the most ofthe role. I produced some phenomenal analytical reports about the averagedonations received from different demographics in the East Midlands area, andthe accuracy of my databases postcodes for supporters aged 65 and over inNorth Yorkshire is still talked about by Data Information Officers around theworld.