As the volcano vomited its detritus of ash across the European continent, a million plans were disrupted. Families were divided, businesses interrupted; chaos took hold. But under the cloud, small stories like this one played out, with consequences not of delayed travel, or money lost, but of something else, indeterminate.
As the ash spread, it had become ever clearer that England would be cloud-bound for days. To get home stateside, to waiting family, I headed south, first by train, then by overnight ferry from a jammed Portsmouth, passing Britain's fleet at anchor, grey and ghostly in the darkness. I reached Paris by mid morning by train but there hit the buffers. The Gare d'Austerlitz was a cacophony of frustration. Vast milling crowds; angry staff; all trains south booked for days.
I returned to my kind friends' apartment and paced around wondering what to do. Madrid was the only clear airport in Europe and the cloud threatened even there. Time was against me but I had no means to travel, all buses like all websites hopelessly clogged. I wandered the streets of Paris, asking in hotels and the few open shops (it was Sunday). Eventually, I found a car at a nearby hotel. Bogdan from Zagreb was the driver, laconic and, I hoped, tireless; we had a very long road ahead. Together, we headed back to the station to recruit others to share the cost.
I worked the train line, trying not to sound like a hustler, "Three places to Madrid, 300 euros plus gas!". People looked at me warily, was this a con? Could they trust me? But in minutes, desperation overcame all suspicion of this scruffy man, trying to look harmless. One by one people approached me: a Mozambican trying to get to Oporto, an Israeli to Haifa, a Pole to her home in Spain and me, the Brit needing to get back to my sick wife and children in New York City.
The journey in prospect was awful: five large adults in a small saloon car, twelve hours non-stop at high speed, in the pitch of night. But we had to get to Madrid by the next morning, where we had planes booked, and it was already evening in Paris. Urgency propelled us.
And this journey was much as other long road journeys. Our conversation was mostly inconsequential; shared family stories, travel histories, children, plans, an occasional laboured cross-cultural joke, the volcano and its machinations - of course. An endless miasmic spool of road and headlights, monotonous and hypnotic. Bogdan sat at the wheel, occasionally flicking his GPS, techno music ticking almost inaudibly but, we hoped, keeping him awake. Outside, the glories of France hidden behind black and lights.
At service stations, we shared ice cream bars and water. Too tired to stand, I stretched my legs by simply sticking them out of the door. Crammed in that little car, only now and then able to sleep, we had become a little community of purpose. Our bodies were packed tightly together, an intimacy enforced but oddly not unwelcome.
Still deep in the night, we reached Spain at last. Now we were drunk with exhaustion. Bogdan gunned the little car around the foothills of the Pyrenees, revving its straining engine. We were thrown against each other as he swerved fast around the tight bends. We grabbed handles to stop ourselves from crushing one another.
Somehow, we made it. As dawn broke, we approached the airport. There, more crowds, but this time palpably broadcasting relief not the desperation of Paris and Portsmouth. Sleeping bodes littered the concourses. The Israeli and I entered the terminal to find cash to pay the doughty and miraculously alert Bogdan. We took a while and when we returned to the little car, the others had left, no doubt hastening to their own destinations.
Freed of the straining uncertainty of the last few days and the claustrophobia of the too-small car, we were glad to have arrived. But I was sad at our group's parting. I said goodbye to the Israeli and Bogdan, knowing that we would never see each other again. Forged by common necessity, a bond had formed among us for that brief while, racing the cloud south across darkened France. Our little cluster of diverse humanity, against the volcano.
Kris Radish: Volcano Strands Travelers at the Airport, Brings People Together
Think about it. You are suddenly stranded and it's not your fault. You are surrounded by people who you would never even talk to--let alone spend hours and days with--but there you are. And what becomes of it all?
Of course, I think opting out and setting up for an additional few days of rest and relaxation in the French countryside far away from the craziness of the transport systems untill it all blew over (literally) might have been a more enjoyable and relaxed (even relaxing) response.
Kind of, when life gives you lemons- make lemonade....
Those who have less need to travel could opt out for more relaxing and enjoyable enforced stay and thereby make life easier not only for themselves, but also for those people who DO have more compelling needs to travel.
I'd consider it a win-win outcome. Those that need to travel (or cannot afford to stay as well) get better access and less congestion, those that have less pressing needs do them a service and can enjoy the best of a bad situation.
The cloud is at a high altitude, not on the ground. And it is an unknown; not much is known about the exact density, type or length of time a jet engine will run while glass builds up on its turbine blades. (Yeah, glass - you heat silica dust, that's what you have.) F16s, which have still been flying on a limited basis, have reported some buildup. This even though their engines are combat rated and higher output and RPM than a passenger jet's.
Now, if you wish to know why the Brits were so sensitive to this, read the story of Brit Airways Flight 9, which flew through a volcanic ash cloud in Indonesia. Not too bad... all that happened was that all four engines quit, and it was darned lucky that the crew got them going again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9
Now, you want to fly through this crapstorm, that's up to you, but as far as sensible people are concerned, you're going alone.