Colombia preparation, part 1

30th Oct Thought I'd bash out a few notes on trip preparations.

I sort of decided a month or two ago that Colombia would be a good candidate for the next trip. Lots of people have told me good things about it, I've only spent a week there (in Bogotá) so there's lots of new stuff to see, apparently the accent is very clear and it may be a good place to study Spanish if I find somewhere I like.

I did some rough checks on flight prices the other week - feeling very lazy and perhaps also a bit apprehensive about going abroad again, as usual - and it looks like you can get a half-decent return flight under £500, which is acceptable.

I steeled myself to read the F&CO travel advice tonight and while it has some mildly scary shit in, it's pretty much what I expected to read and I'm not too put off. I also followed the link on that page to some information about vaccinations and so forth; it looks like I'm already covered for vaccinations, although as previously waffled (I think) I may well get vaccinated for rabies given I'm preparing a little bit earlier this time round. The benefits of the rabies vaccine seem a little nebulous - you still "need" near-immediate treatment (or is it merely highly advisable, but you might be OK without it?) after a bite, but it takes the pressure off a bit and means you don't need some potentially rare injection after the bite so treatment is simpler - but I think it's something like a hundred quid tops and if I can get it and it does last ten years then I might as well for the peace of mind.

Malaria is present but a low risk everywhere and they don't recommend taking any tablets to prevent infection, so while the prospect of getting malaria isn't enticing it's not very likely and at least I don't need to skirmish with any doctors to try to coax a malaria prescription out of them.

I've also started (just today) skimming through my 2007 vintage "South America on a shoestring" guidebook to get a feel for what sort of thing tourists do in Colombia. Apart from being useful background information, I'm trying to get a feel for whether I should take my waterproof jacket/leggings with me for any possible hiking/trekking kind of activities, or if I can get away without them. This also feeds into my ongoing rather lazy attempt to investigate the prospect of buying a lightweight bag to use on this trip to cut down on my luggage weight still further; a lot of these bags (even ones which are really very light) are sixty litre jobs which would be highly iffy as hand luggage on a plane, and below that you get down to 35 litre jobs which might be workable but feels a bit tight.

I did see one tempting mention of paragliding in the guide book, but I don't know if I'll be able to get travel insurance which allows this - I was blocked off from this by my insurer on the last pair of trips. Obviously I can take this into account when buying my new policy, but it looks as though Colombia shares with Guatemala the lack of decent non-private medical facilities, which means I'm likely to feel the same pressure as last year to buy from a relatively small handful of insurers with a better reputation for not kicking up a stink about treatment in private facilities in the (touch wood) unlikely event I need it.

Obviously I still have a couple of months before departure at this point, so I don't need to go rushing around like crazy trying to sort things out and decide on everything, but I also need to not put everything off and end up haring around in the end anyway. In part I hope writing this up will help me to realise "yes, I am going on this damn trip even if it does feel like hard work" and help me start getting on with the relevant preparations/decisions.

I am re-reading onebag.com and as always I note that I do travel with slightly more clothes than the author recommends (5 tops and 5 sets of underwear instead of 2-4 and "3+" respectively). I could certainly see the value in reducing these quantities, and if I always stayed in en suite accommodation where I could wash clothes in the sink any night I chose, I might get away with this. As it is my budget accommodation often doesn't have this, so I do need to be able to use laundry services etc and that gets increasingly inconvenient the fewer items of clothing you have.

I think I'm going to buy a cheap-ish P38 tin opener, remembering just how rare it was to have one in both hostels and private flats on the last trip. A quick poke on the web suggests this probably won't be confiscated by airport security and I'll have to err on the crappy-low-quality end of things in case it is, but it's probably a decent gamble. I don't really want to be buying an overpriced tin opener once I'm abroad and then lugging it round with me for the rest of the trip. Hmm, a bit more web pokery and actually looking at a photo of one makes me a bit dubious about being allowed to fly with one (rationality aside). Hmm. Maybe I'll sleep on it.

(Yes, obviously some cans have a ring pull, but not all - especially otherwise perfectly acceptable cheaper brands. ISTR needing to buy that can opener on my last trip because there were basic-ish tinned foods I wanted to buy where none of the brands stocked had a ring pull on. It may also be ring pulls are a bit less common in some countries.)

Another poke around on the web shows alleged means of opening a can using an ordinary metal spoon. I might give this a go next time I cook and see how I get on, if that can be made to work it would make a P38 less necessary.

31st Oct Amazingly enough I have just opened a tin (of red kidney beans) with an ordinary teaspoon! And although my hand bears some pressure marks from pushng on the spoon, no blood sacrifice was required. I did get a bit over-excited when I first punctured the lid and didn't spend as much time as I probably should have done extending the puncture; I ended up levering a (doubtless wickedly sharp) flap up on the lid, just enough to allow access to the contents, but it did work. I'll definitely have to try this a bit more. Superficially the teaspoon appears unharmed. I could imagine doing this in a private kitchen in a rented holiday flat with no tin opener, at my current level of skiill and the time taken I might be a bit iffier doing it in a shared hostel kitchen where I might feel under time pressure.

1st Nov I tried opening a tin with a spoon again tonight; didn't have much luck. I think I gave up a little early, I could feel the tin abrading but I didn't quite get through enough to break the seal before I stopped. The edges of the spoon do dig into my fingers a bit uncomfortably (leaving marks, but not drawing blood) and perhaps the fact that I knew I didn't need to do it made all the difference. I might have another go another day. Still not sure about buying a P38; it feels like something that might get confiscated or just possibly even get me into trouble at security and because of the confiscation risk I'd want to buy a really cheap one which would probably just make it even less usable/long-lasting than it otherwise would be.

5th Nov Done a bit of poking around on web re rabies vaccination. Much deceptive pricing with a per dose price being quoted plus a "consultation fee" at some places. I haven't tried to book anything yet - I need to get a move on, but it's roughly a one month course of injections so I'm not too tight for time, and I feel I have a lingering cold it might be nice to get rid of first - but at least this is a step towards getting it done. Looks like I might be able to get vaccinated for around £160 all in, lasting for 10 years. If this actually meant I couldn't get rabies full stop I'd definitely be doing it. As it is all this still having to get treated after a bite anyway makes it feel a bit expensive for "nothing", but it does look like it at least takes some of the urgency out of being treated after a bite. As I've probably said before, my big worry is really that I get bitten "unobtrusively" by a bat and don't realise I need to seek treatment out - if a dog attacks me I'm obviously going to be seeking medical attention ASAP, for the wounds if nothing else - and the rabies vaccination doesn't really seem to offer me much comfort in this scenario, but £160 isn't cripplingly expensive and I'll probably go ahead and get it done. I could completely understand someone on a really tight budget not bothering though.

6th Nov Been re-reading onebag.com. Always do think I take too many liquids (security crap, plus they are heavy). Wondered about maybe switching to a powdered laundry detergent, but in reality a single 100ml tube of the gel product I use easily lasts an entire trip and I'd really not be carrying an unlabelled plastic bag of white powder around with me. Will probably make an effort to take a solid stick deodorant instead of a liquid roll on this time, it's not a huge saving but it will probably help - if nothing else, it will save space in my plastic bag o' liquids for security.

7th Nov Been dithering heavily about buying a lightweight bag. Have been poking around at old blog entries to try to motivate myself. While I probably do need to be a little less paranoid/stingy about lugging excessive quantities of water around with me, I could potentially save about a kilo by switching to a lighter bag and that really could make all the difference to comfort levels in transit. I've been doing intermittent research on the various options for weeks (months, actually, albeit with a huge gap when I did nothing) and I've pretty much decided I am going to buy a particular bag which seems to hit a relative sweet spot of cost, weight and size for what is a bit of an experiment. I just struggle to actually commit to buying it. (I made a fair effort to go and find a physical shop I could buy it from so I could see it first, but there don't seem to be any.) I've already told myself the returns policy on the site I'll buy from is excellent (since we're into November I could return it unused for a full refund - less postage for the return, of course - up to early January) so even buying the damn thing is not committing to spend the large-but-not-insane amount of money on it. FFS, I'm going to have (another) coffee and then unless massive regret looms I will push through this niggling doubt and just order the damn thing. As I have already told myself, even if I decide against using the new bag for the upcoming (not yet booked) Colombia trip, it might well be a perfect size for a long-weekend-to-week-ish length trip to Europe or the like, where I'd have a better idea what I was going to be doing and what the weather would be like and could avoid packing some stuff I feel I have to take when I'm going to be away for three months and possibly experiencing quite variable weather as I move around.

I get a choice of colours and seeking to be inconspicuous it's tempting to go for the plain black, but I think I'll go for the only other option, which is black with some blue panels. This isn't super-gaudy and I think having my bag look totally anonymous is not always a good thing - if I do ever need to spot it on a luggage belt at an airport, for example, plain black blends in just a little bit too well. The blue does look a bit light and more in-your-face than the dark blue of my current bag (which I'm very happy with; it's distinctive enough to help pick it out on luggage belts etc but not at all flashy), but I do think it's still better than plain black. (It's not just luggage belts at airports, of course - it's also helpful to be able to recognise it/give a description of it when collecting bags from a coach's boot at the end of a journey.)

Yeah, coffee then order barring massive regret.

Later: Yeah, have ordered, no feelings of regret yet. :-)

On a random note, I am aware that this time last year I was in Guatemala.

10th Nov Re-reading some of my Guatemala blog entries, I am reminded that I've ordered myself a PackTowl Original viscose towel. The cheap viscose towel I got from ebay many years ago has worn into holes, I struggled to find an actual viscose towel for sale (everyone wants to sell you microfibre towels, which apparently are not the same at all) and finding PTO is not that expensive I've ordered one. I am half hoping this is going to be a revelation when I use it compared to the perhaps-not-proper-viscose-or-not-good-quality one I was using before.

Just re-read the old San Pedro La Laguna blog entry where my superb afternoon (great and plentiful food, beer and coffee overlooking the lake) was spoiled by the spiders in the bathroom of hotel A and the booby-trapped sink of hotel B. Quite amusing and almost heart-warming to look back on as I read it now.

I am also reminded of the feeling of vulnerability I sometimes get when I'm alone in a strange low-budget hotel room at night when the hotel appears to be virtually empty or to have somehow "odd" other guests. This is doubtless a bit irrational and probably also a fairly common feeling.

15th Nov Got the new bag (Terra Nova Laser 35) on Monday; had a quick fiddle with it and reasonably impressed. I really need to sit down and try to pack it "properly" and see how I get on, and if I need to buy any kind of internal bags to help organise things better given it only packs through the top and is less convenient than my older bag. Haven't got round to this yet.

Been feeling a bit "blocked" on getting sorted for the upcoming trip. This is probably just psychology/laziness, but I thought it might be worth making a few notes here:

- As I say, I need to experimentally pack the new bag and see how I get on with it.

- I need to order replacements for stuff I've lost and any new items I need. As a lot of cheap stuff comes from China and is delivered very slowly, I don't want to hang around too much on this. I've already ordered a couple of items and this is probably mostly in hand, but still. Experimentally packing the new bag will probably help me sort this out.

- I need to buy travel insurance, which is super un-sexy but is important and gets a bit awkward because I both want the option to have paragliding insurance and I'm worried about being stiffed by the insurer over needing to go into a private hospital if something bad happens (in general, not with respect to paragliding!). I have done a bit of research and e-mailed a few providers (who mostly either ignore me or insist I call them to discuss this) but nothing more yet. Buying travel insurance is also a pre-requisite for booking a flight, because I want to be covered for cancellation before I spend money on a flight.

- I need to decide I am going to Colombia and book a flight. I've had a poke at flights, prices are borderline tolerable leaving mid-January (I haven't checked fine print regarding seat reservation and checked baggage etc yet), if a bit more than I'd like, but I find myself wondering if it's worth paying more to go a bit sooner and be back before Easter, or if I should cut the trip short to fly mid-January and still be back for Easter. Apart from the usual stress of making these decisions, booking the flight is also psychologically committing to the trip - the dates and the destination - because it means I've invested a non-negligible chunk of cash in it.

- I need to try to get some Spanish study in. The usual laziness comes in here. Then again, I have at least managed to find some interesting and non-up-winding Spanish language content on Youtube and I am watching 30+ minutes of that a day, which I think is probably good exposure to the language.

- I need to do a little bit of work on my attitudes (psychological shit) to help me feel more comfortable and relaxed and confident while I'm away. Nuff said here.

- I need to finish at least skimming the Colombia section in my old guidebook, decide whether I need to take my "trekking" clothes with me (the experimental pack of the new bag should help make it clearer whether taking them is a big faff or not, in part), and I also need to buy an up-to-date electronic guidebook. I'll be honest, I often feel the guidebook is a waste of time, it's a mixture of smug condescension and unhelpful advice, and even if I wanted to stay there half the time the accommodation it lists isn't available via the online booking sites so I just end up picking accommodation based on the online reviews. But for the sake of a few quid it's probably a good thing to have, and I guess I must sometimes find useful information in there. (The location of the cash machine at La Aurora airport springs to mind.) It does also work offline so good to have as a fallback source of information if I can't get internet access.

- It would be good (but not essential) to sketch out a rough itinerary. I wouldn't have to stick religiously to this, but in the absence of new information turning up during the trip (recommendations, adverts, developing a fondness/hatred for the town I'm currently in, opportunities to study Spanish, etc) having a default plan isn't a bad idea. I'm more likely to be able to take a broader view and look at maps as I think while I'm sitting here in my flat than when I'm peering at everything on my phone screen in a hotel room in Bogota. (Having the old paper guidebook also helps, since it's so much easier to skim through than an electronic one.)

- I need to buy new clothes. Some of my old ones are fine, of course, but I don't know if I need to replace the cheap combat trousers I bought before I went to Guatemala, and even if I don't I may want to get a second pair and take those instead of the "smart" Rohan trousers. I may be able to get some breathable trousers if I'm not shopping in a rush as I was before I went to Guatemala. Similarly, I may be able to get some more decent lightweight long-sleeved tops. I need to - and will - go over to the big Decathlon at Canada Water to see what they have, they're cheap enough unlike some of the boutiquey travel stores in central London I went to pre-Guatemala. I also need to buy some shoes, and I don't know if I want walking shoes or just some smart shoe-style trainers or perhaps some trail running shoes as a kind of compromise. The problem here is that buying these exterior clothes involves making some basic attempt to achieve a "non-ridiculous" colour scheme, and I feel deeply uncomfortable in this area. I'm kind of hoping to get some advice on this from a friend, but I suspect I'm going to struggle to explain the constraints - I need everything to go with everything else; I don't need to look amazing, I just need to look not-"what the hell is that guy wearing"; I want to take just a single pair of shoes and if, for example, I decide to buy another pair of walking shoes as I did last time, they may well only come in certain undesirable colours; I need the clothes to be lightweight and easy to wash (so no denim).

- I need to get a rabies vaccination sorted out; while it seems a bit expensive for what it is, it's tolerable. The shitty reminder app I used on my phone lost the reminder so I was able to let this slip my mind, but I was in any case waiting until my lingering cold cleared up before going ahead with this. I'm not entirely sure I don't have another very minor cold at the moment - nose felt a bit bunged up this morning, for example - but I'm going up to see my parents for a week anyway so I can't do this until I get back anyway.

[a night's sleep intervenes]

I've had a quick look at the trousers I took away with me last time; both seem to be in good condition with no obvious wear or near holes in the usual potentially iffy regions. Gut feeling is that if I can find something half decent, I may buy another pair of combat trousers or similar, ideally breathable ones, to replace the Rohan smart casual trousers I've been taking before. The Rohan trousers are completely fine as trousers, but I do prefer the zipped pockets on the combat trousers (which aren't, incidentally, festooned with extra pockets - they just have one extra one on the right leg) and if memory serves correctly I nearly always end up wearing the Rohan trousers only when my other pair is in the wash, so it would probably be better to replace them with a more "usable" pair. I don't know that I've ever really needed the relatively increased smartness they offer, and although that does seem a reasonable argument for having them, it's not as if the rest of my attire is usually super smart anyway.

I've also steeled myself to poke at the insurance business a bit more. Seen some horrific online reviews of one of the cheap insurers, but of course it's always the disgruntled customers who leave the reviews. I did find some stuff on which.co.uk about nearly half of complaints to the regulator about the underwriter of that policy being upheld, which seems a bit to offer a bit more of a "reputably unreputable" status. I don't know, I kind of feel a sap for maybe paying £150-ish instead of £50-ish for the travel insurance, but of course it's no good if when you claim it won't pay out or it fucks you over (perhaps long-term) by not getting you the medical treatment you need ASAP. For me at least travel insurance is a bit more quality-sensitive than other insurance, if I need to make a claim on my home insurance it somehow feels a bit less time-critical and a bit more like I know I'd get paid in the end.

I found a few insurers recommended openly with no subscription required by which.co.uk and had a look at their policies and got some approximate quotes from them. I don't know if it's a coincidence, but I know from either explicit wording in the policy documents I looked at or my explicit question to LV last year that most of the "good" insurers don't seem to want to touch paragliding, whereas the cheaper policy offers it if you call them and pay an additional premium. I may chicken out of this but it does interest me (and I've done it before of course) and I'd like to keep the option open; my outdated guidebook mentions some prospect of this. It looked like it might be a choice between keeping that option open or choosing "good" travel insurance, but it looks as though there are insurers who will provide separate top-up cover for activities like this for about £40, which is pretty much what I'd expect to be paying as an additional premium to one of the travel policies which allows that, so this doesn't have to be an either-or choice.

I do note that LV's policy wording about private hospitals seems extremely harsh, verging on rude, although if moneysavingexpert.com is to be believed they are in practice pretty good about this. It does look like some of the other "good" policies I've found have much less scary wording in this area though, and barring major differences in price I'd probably be inclined to go for one of them.

I had a good experience with Trailfinders and private hospitals in the past, of course, and they did IIRC let me go paragliding either as standard or on payment of a modest fee - it's so long ago I don't have any records. So assuming they haven't changed and their policy wording is consistent with how they behaved, I'd definitely class them as a "good" insurer. Unfortunately their multi-trip policies don't allow trips over 70 days and their single trip insurance for a 90 day trip is just comically expensive compared to the other "good" annual multi trip insurers who do allow 90 day trips. They're not alone in this, of course, I've experimented as I did last year with getting some quotes and it's seems crazy how the same insurer will charge less for an annual multi-trip policy than they would for a single trip policy, even when the single trip itself would be covered by the annual policy. I have to assume there's some reason for this, perhaps related to older people who aren't eligible for multi-trip policies, although since they ask for your age when quoting for a single-trip policy I don't really see logically why that should come into it.

(I think way back in 2010 when I did my first long trip, the market was less competitive and/or I was less experience and made less effort to seek out the best price; I booked all my flights via Trailfinders and it may be I let them sell me their insurance. But it is worth noting that was a 5-6 month trip, so annual multi-trip insurance would almost certainly have been unavailable, and quite possibly Trailfinders were competitive on a single trip policy.)

Looking back in a futile attempt to locate paragliding posts, I note I used to give my blog posts a lot more entertaining titles. But I'm not even trying to write for an audience now, and I find it helpful to be able to see the place names. Ah, I have now managed to locate something - apparently I only paid £15 to Trailfinders as an additional premium for paragliding in 2012, but that was a long time ago and I don't think the £40-ish (probably a smidge less) I saw from those top-up insurance companies is terrible value by comparison.

Also forced myself to poke in a bit more detail at the flights. I can broadly tolerate being charged extra for things like seat selection and checked baggage, but the lack of transparency around what you actually get as part of the basic fare and what the additional fees are really pisses me off. (Do I get free seat selection during online check in, if I'm willing to take a gamble, or will you assign me a seat at random just to make things as unpleasant as possible? How much does it cost to reserve a seat in advance? I appreciate you want to charge more for the emergency exit row, but I'd like to see a list of prices, not just a vague statement that it's "from £4".) Nothing new here, but it still sucks. As I say, I can accept additional fees, it's the lack of clarity that really winds me up and gives me a strong weasel vibe - surely I can't be alone in this? Maybe they're just clueless fuckwits, or maybe enough people get suckered in by the nominally low(ish) price and then say "ah, fuck it, £50 per flight to choose my own seat - what the hell, YOLO!" that it pays off for them.

While the £500 flights are acceptable (though I'm not totally happy with the dates), this isn't as cheap as I'd have liked.

21st Nov Starting to get edgy about having missed out on good flights. Not helped by the fact kayak.co.uk (and I suspect most comparion sites share the same underlying engine) seem to be having some sort of glitch with Air Europa fares, they either don't appear at all (and I know from the AE site itself some exist at cheap-enough-to-show prices) or appear while the search is ongoing but disappear when the results are complete. It is looking like the £500 flights may have sold out but it's not clear, I haven't spent ages entering individual dates on Air Europa to hunt them out in the absence of the comparison sites working.

I did do a pretend booking on Air Europa and it looks like reserving seats would cost £34 if I just want to do the long-haul legs and £52 if I want to do all four flights. My research seems to suggest they absolutely only let you have a randomly assigned seat for free, which is shit and feels completely chiselling and makes me hate them more than I hate the average airline.

I have been dithering anyway, partly out of a reluctance to commit to the trip and partly because of not-critical-but-annoying decisions about when I fly and whether I'm willing to be away from the UK for Easter. Gut feeling, having also spoken briefly to parents, is that I am not too fussed about being back for Easter.

I am leaning towards splurging a bit on direct flights with Avianca. They're not great, but it does look like I can choose seats for free at online checkin. I tried calling them to check this (no one will let you e-mail them, it seems) but the 0800 number gives me a long spiel about recording calls and data protection, then either refuses to accept I've pressed "1" to acknowledge this or accepts it but then cuts the call off anyway. It annoys me Avianca won't show seat reservation prices on their website without me making an actual booking - I'd like to know in case it turns out "too late" that I can't choose a seat for free at online check in - but this appears to be standard practice, wank as it is. There are currently acceptable-ish (ignoring precise question of dates etc) Avianca flights at £640 all in. By the time you add £52 to the Air Europa fares for the seat reservation swizz (it's not apples-to-apples, but neither was comparing their raw "random seat" fare with other airlines where you at least get the standard option to choose for free at online check in) this is not insanely more expensive than even the possibly-disappeared nominally-£500 Air Europa flights - we're looking at £552 vs £640 - and obviously a direct flight is much nicer, and Avianca's fare does include checked bags if I want to take advantage of this to bring e.g. a bit of duty free back with me as a souvenir. (I'm not so desperate for a souvenir of this nature that it's worth paying a premium to check a bag, but it's a small bonus if I get that anyway.) I'd also rather give my business to an airline which is more (if not perfectly) upfront and open about fees than Air Europa. As I've probably said before, I don't mind having to pay extra for all sorts of little things, what I resent is sneaky hidden costs by removing "standard" services like free seats at check in and not being completely open about the fact or the price to add these back in. (I had to do a pretend booking to see the price of seat reservations, for example. This seems semi-standard, but on most airlines I would at least have the option to choose seats for free during check in.)

A random (admittedly 2015) thread on Lonely Planet where someone was bitching (mostly unreasonably; although the standard rules Avianca had followed were in themselves pretty weaselly, that wasn't specifically Avianca being crap) about Avianca did turn up a random comment that internal flights in Colombia are relatively cheap, "unlike the rest of the continent". This is worth bearing in mind, given advice about not travelling by bus overnight etc I may want/need to take internal flights but I do (probably correctly) have an impression that internal flights in South America in general are not particularly cheap, and it may be that that isn't true for Colombia. Obviously I will look into this as and when I book individual journeys within my trip, probably when I'm abroad.

Advice I have read in various places seems to suggest that on safety grounds you really need to focus on visiting cities in Colombia, not anywhere too rural (except, presumably, the more recognised eco-ish-tourism destinations). On the one hand I don't like to feel this has to be the case, but really that suits me down to the ground. I generally prefer cities. I have also thought, just musing to myself, that I don't need to go charging round the country trying to see a lot of places. If I actually found myself in largish city X early in the trip and decided I really liked it (especially, but not necessarily, if I could study Spanish there enjoyably and cheaply either privately or in a school) and I essentially spent three months in one place and maybe got to know that place in a bit more depth than I otherwise would, that would be fine. It's like my trip to Guatemala last year, I really saw only a tiny part of the country and while I could probably have been a "better" tourist even within the set of places I went, it's not a problem I didn't go charging off to other tourist sites. I'm not dying to see them, there will be other trips when I can go to them, and I did mostly enjoy taking things a bit slower and spending more time in fewer places, even if as I say I could have done better from a social and tourist POV.

I also need to remember that although it's not financially optimal (or most convenient), even once I've booked these flights I still have the option to add on some relatively short flights to convert my Colombia trip into a trip to some other Latin American destination instead, should I suddenly get cold feet about Colombia for some reason.

It is looking like my dithering has maybe cost me about £90. We might say that if they were still available (it seems unlikely, but hard to be certain) I'd have booked the "£500" Air Europa flights and paid an extra £52 for seat reservations, whereas I am leaning towards paying £640 for direct Avianca flights now the cheaper flights have disappeared. This isn't apples-to-apples (the £552 Air Europa flights would include guaranteed seats, whereas with Avianca I'm taking a punt on getting acceptable seats for free at online check in, and on the other hand Avianca has checked baggage included) but it's about as close as I can make it. Obviously a direct flight is nicer and all other things being equal I'd probably be willing to pay £10-20 extra to fly direct anyway.

In the future I maybe need to be more open to committing to a trip far in advance; I suspect if I'd been keeping an eye out (and perhaps subscribed to the premium version of Jack's Flight Club or similar) I could have got £300-400-ish flights to Colombia or some other interesting Latin American destination by booking months ago. It just feels a bit risky to do so. This is probably irrational; any major shittiness would probably mean travel insurance would pay for cancellation, and if it didn't I'd be losing the price of a cheap-ish flight. I think it's more that if someone had said to me in (say) August "do you want to book a cheap flight to go to Colombia in January?" I'd have been feeling this "well, maybe, err, it's tempting, but what if for some reason I don't want to go once we get to January, I'd kind of like to put the decision off" reluctance to commit to it. Perhaps (probably not) there was also an element of being unsure if I wanted to go away in October-ish as well/instead, but I don't think that's really a big element.

Thinking about it a bit more, I think part of the problem was that I didn't want to have commited to go to a specific destination in January too early, when something might have happened that made me think "yeah, going to country X would be cool" and then I couldn't go to country X because I'd already booked for country Y. This isn't really something I should worry about a lot, but I think it was part of the "let's not book too early to get a really great deal" problem.

22nd Nov Absolute flight search odyssey. Last night I came close to booking some flights at £490, a couple of hours later they had totally disappeared and the same airline was advertising the flights at £600+ IIRC, today very similar (possibly identical) flights have reappeared at <£490. I haven't booked anything yet.

I am now leaning towards going with Air Europa, assuming their flights don't disappear or soar in price again. It appears they allocate you a random (i.e. poor, I assume) seat unless you pay to reserve. I don't like the relative lack of openness about that, but otherwise I can accept it. They are relatively cheap and even after factoring in the price of reserving the seats, their flights are still coming in about £100 below the corresponding Avianca direct flights. Avianca is, as I say, direct, but that's not a huge bonus. They also have a checked baggage allowance but again that's not huge for me. Avianca will allow me to choose a seat for free at online checkin, but I can pay £100 less than Avianca and have guaranteed (barring fuckups, which can never be prevented) seats on all my Air Europa flights, which will be an enormous psychological load off my mind, irrationally or not. Yes, I'd almost certainly get acceptable (i.e. aisle; I'm not otherwise fussy) seats at online check in with Avianca but I'd be on tenterhooks the day before the flight, and when I come back it means I have to make myself available the last night of the trip to check in (and look at the stress I had with the Aeromexico site coming back from Guatemala). I could pay extra to reserve a seat with Avianca, but then it's getting even more expensive and - I haven't pretended to book to see the actual seat reservation cost - we're probably looking at a £130+ premium over Air Europa by this point, which is a heavy premium to pay for a direct flight and a checked baggage allowance.

I have discovered that although opodo offers some Air Europa flights >£20 less than Air Europa themselves, the seat reservations cost far more via opodo (£88 vs £52 to reserve on all four flights), so a) if I'm reserving seats, as I'm not willing to accept random/bad seats, it's effectively cheaper to book direct with Air Europa b) the range of tricks to confuse pricing is even larger than I had previously realised; I had been assuming the seat reservation charge would be the same everywhere.

I do seem to be being pushed later and later into January. Given I didn't really start looking into flights until about a month ago, my notes suggest I would have been flying out 18th January even had I booked at that point, but the cheap flights I am currently seeing have me going out 23rd January. This isn't terrible but given I am nominally going away to avoid the UK winter a bit it's not great.

Later: OK, it's 2305 and I've steeled myself to book the flights before they maybe evaporate again at midnight; it may well already be midnight in Spain but I started before their midnight as well. £542 for return with Air Europa via Madrid, I picked aisle seats for all four flights so barring fuckups I don't have to worry about this. I don't have any hold baggage (and I'll get stiffed for £100+ if I need it, I have no idea if that's each way) but in reality I should not need this. Do feel a bit edgy but it's all good. FFS, I'd rather not lose £542 but if I just decide I don't want to go, it's not a critically large amount of cash to lose. This is flying out 23rd January and returning 20th April, for 90 days travelling (including the day where I'm flying in the morning and back home in the afternoon). I need to book travel insurance ASAP but didn't want to commit to buying it before I'd booked a flight. That's a bit later than I'd like but as I already said, in reality I'd have been flying out 18th January even had I booked 3-4 weeks ago. I could probably have gone out 18th January and come back 8th April for the same price as what I just booked, but I'm not so desperate to get away five days earlier that I'm willing to give up a week abroad. Just hope I don't wake up in a cold sweat tomorrow morning having booked this. ;-)

OK, 2312 and still no panic attack. :-) Just to waffle about travel insurance: yes I could in theory have gone and booked some immediately before booking this flight, or this afternoon, or yesterday, but since I'm paying for "quality" travel insurance it would be about £150 and I didn't want to buy it if I hadn't absolutely committed to taking a trip. I didn't want to book it just before going ahead and booking the flight because I was in a rush and fighting my own funk to book the tickets. Also, since I have a totally irrelevant "pre-existing medical condition" I anticipate a minor amount of shit phoning up call centres to be given the OK when booking the travel insurance and even if I hadn't been fighting the funk off that would have been near-impossible to do at this time of night. And I was racing the clock a bit lest these flights evaporate at midnight Cinderella-style as they seemed to do yesterday.

While I won't deny feeling nervy (and being super paranoid triple checking everything during the booking), I don't feel too bad, and I think the fact I seemed to have "lost" the cheap-ish OK-ish flights to Colombia yesterday helped confirmed that I would like to go there this time. And as I've said before, if I really get cold feet about Colombia for whatever reason I can recover a bit by spending a couple of hundred quid on flights from Bogota to Guatemala or Costa Rica or Argentina or wherever feels better.

I see F&CO website has mention of national strikes; the actual prospect of disturbance doesn't deeply worry me, I can hole up in my accommodation for a day, but I could be fucked if there are such strikes on the days I need to fly into or out of the country. Just have to hope I guess. I did see this before I booked, I had checked it for last minute "WTF?!" news a few times today so as not to be caught out. I can't not go because there might be as-yet-unannounced strikes when I am flying.

28th Nov I haven't had a massive attack of cold feet yet, though I've been a bit distracted by other things. This post has been accumulating far too long, and since I've now actually booked the flights I should just publish the damn thing. I need to get the rabies vaccination sorted, maybe later today.

Been listening to Lucy Grau's Spanish version of MacArthur Park (which is both good - I quite enjoy it - and bad - I don't really like the excessive salsa-ness of the chorus, and it's not a literal translation) and thinking of Lezama Park and (even more irrationally) some of the minor parks I visited in Santiago. I was out with Patrick tonight (technically last night; it's early hours of 28th as I write this) and some stuff he said about feeling the atmosphere of places he'd visited was oddly reassuring. I really need to give less of shit about doing what the guide book tells me and worrying about "missing out" on stuff, and just do more casual wandering. To be fair to myself I've donea fair amount of that on my more recent trips, but I've often felt a bit bad or pseudo-lonely doing it, and really that's stupid.

As I observed to Patrick (and perhaps didn't get the point across), I think of the essay in the cruise brochure mentioned by David Foster Wallace in his (super enjoyable) essay "Shipping Out", where Frank Conroy describes the "vast lapis lazuli dome of the sky" and DFW points out that this encourages the casual reader to perceive the blue Carribean sky differently. I don't mean this in a deeply wanky "we are all slaves of literature and influence and context" way, just that I personally find this illuminating. I think my trips are a bit tainted by the picture painted by the guide books and pseudo-Guardian-travel-writing stuff into thinking I "should" be appreciating the culture via a) sitting in a cool local cafe b) chatting with a local c) having a massive party, and while I'm not saying any of those are bad, it's also the case that just experiencing the place in my own way and enjoying whatever random shit (e.g. Lezama Park, even if it's partly influenced by the random connection my brain made with that and MacArthur Park (the song; never been near the place)) tickles my personal fancy. (Like being a bit unimpressed by the moai on Easter Island, then being jaw-droppingly impressed by Rano Kao - as I write this, I actually feel it would be cool to go back and wander round it some more, though I have had a few beers and wouldn't take this too seriously if I were me, which I am.)

And really - this seems so obvious, but it's also so easy to forget - why the fuck do I do anything, never mind the relatively expensive and painful travel, if not for me and to "feel" things? Why the fuck should I spoil it for myself by letting the guide book and other people's random blogs tell me how it "should" be? If I could only not worry about that kind of shit, I'm sure I could have a - quiet, nominally dull - much more fulfilling time. How nice would it be just to sit in some random park and mull over shit and look around me, if I weren't continually thinking "I should be having more active fun and be in the centre of a whirl of social activity, I'm such a loser" during it? Meh. No one else ultimately gives a shit, and it would be futile to do any of this stuff to try to impress anyone. At best there's the odd amusing anecdote to tell, and that's cool, but that's the froth, not the beer.

While I'm mildly drunkenly rambling, perhaps worth noting that just because something is promoted as a tourist attraction, that doesn't mean it's not worth seeing. I'm thinking - based on viewing some slightly stereotyped stills of "sky reflected in water" on a YT video of "Let Go" - of some of the views of sky-reflected-in-water from the Salar de Uyuni tour I did back in IIRC 2010. The guide books were rather scathing about these tours, but even if they maybe had some sort of point (and I'm not sure they did), that doesn't actually alter the "wow, cool" factor of things like e.g. those SRIW views. At the time I don't know if they truly astounded me - check the old blog entries, I haven't right now! - but the mere fact that I'm even thinking about this now nearly ten years later has to mean those memories were worth acquiring. It's just me here, talking to myself, I'm not expecting or hoping to impress some random conversational partner with tales of adventurous derring-do.

And again, while I'm mildly drunkenly rambling, I should remember that cool things are there - here? - to be seen at home too. I've seen some cool atmospheric effects on Skegness beach. Shit, if - unlikely as it seems, but it does happen - someone had travelled halfway round the world to go stand on the deserted south end of the beach at Skegness, they'd probably naturally treasure such things more than I do. This isn't to say there's no point travelling, just to note that it's not necessary nor that things can only be interesting or cool if I see them thousands of miles from home. Hell, I quite enjoy the view out of my window right now at 4am in London; there's an unusually lurid blue light coming from the Shard and a clear view of the towers of the City.

28th Nov Since I haven't yet posted this, I'll continue here. Quick (possibly repetitive) poke re vaccines. My yellow fever vaccine certificate has an expiration date of end of this year, but https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/yellow-fever/vaccination/ says "All vaccination certificates are now valid for life, including older ones with an expiry date on them." So I won't worry about this. I've suddenly "noticed" MMR is recommended and as I was born between 1970 and 1979 I may only have had measles vaccination as a child. I hadn't paid much attention before as this is recommended for being in Britain too. OTOH no one said anything about it when I went to the NHS GP (nurse? not sure) to get vaccinated last year, it may well be I've been given this at some point anyway and it is free on the NHS so I might have expected them to mention it if appropriate. In any case, since it is free on the NHS, I know not to let the travel clinic I speak to about rabies vaccination upsell me on having this.

Right, I just called Nomad Travel, who seemed to be cheapest for the rabies vaccination in my poke around the web the other week. They don't currently have any in stock but are hoping to get some in and I've gone on a list to be called back. There are two different way this can be administered which cost different amounts; they won't be cheapest if I end up on the more expensive of the two, but then again other places don't even seem to mention this so I have no idea whether they're always giving the cheaper option or always the more expensive option or if they just don't mention it. NT are still not particularly expensive compared to most of the other prices I saw even if I do end up on the more expensive of the two options. Worst case is I'm paying effectively £67 for each of three doses, except for Superdrug at £58/dose everywhere else I found in my web search is charging £65/dose upwards, so I'm not massively overpaying even if I do end up on the more expensive option.
30th Nov Had decided to get two new pairs of the same style of trousers I bought the other year when I went to Guatemala; the ones I keep calling combat trousers even though they only have one leg pocket. They were comfortable, seemed to wear well, I really liked having zipped pockets to prevent stuff falling out on bus seats etc. Decided to get a light and dark grey pair this time round after getting a bit of advice. Had to trog over to the St Paul's Sports Direct to get them, neither of my two local stores had two pairs of the right colours in my size (and Sports Direct don't let you order online for free instore delivery, or have any stock which isn't on display) and there was a 2-for-£38 deal so I didn't want to buy a single pair. Will need to get those turned up but that shouldn't be a problem, and I will probably buy a pair of the same sort of shoes I bought last year too though again in a different colour to better match the trousers (I had beige-ish ones last year). I have decided I'll not be taking the Rohan smart-ish travel trousers with me; they may come in useful on some other trip, but as I've said before for my recent long trips I've just not been wearing them that much and they're not pulling their weight in my very restricted set of clothes.