Tag: Travel

Hertz doubled the cost of my car rental. Here’s their process design trick.

This year, during my family holiday, I discovered how Hertz – and many other car hire companies – have crafted a process involving dark patterns to trick stressed travellers into paying far more than necessary for their car hire.

I’ve used Hertz several times over the years, particularly in the 2000s, so I expected good service, a decent car, and straightforward business.

Let’s start with the booking process. It was perfectly fine and straightforward online. The price seemed reasonable, and as the holiday approached, I was actually looking forward to seeing what car I would receive. I even found a potential car upgrade at a slightly lower price when I went back to check some details. Happy days, I thought.

Car collection was quick – no big queue – and the chap at the counter was affable. I was juggling kids and feeling the usual airport stress when he said, “You can have your wife as an additional driver for free, and you don’t have to worry about the excess.” I thought, “Oh wow, that’s great! Romana, do you have your licence?”

He handed me the rental slip, I signed, and at no point did I realise what had just happened.

Great, I thought.

The car, however, was a bit of a disappointment – a somewhat battered Jeep Compass plug-in hybrid. Not ideal when staying at a caravan site. But I coped, thinking it wasn’t worth the hassle to switch cars. Then, midway through the holiday, the engine check light came on. I called Hertz, and they said to drop off the car for a replacement. Brilliant. Except the woman at the counter seemed grumpy about it.

No worries. New car acquired, off we went. It was a Mini Countryman Cooper. Worse spec, but a much better car.

But this isn’t a car review. It’s about how Hertz deliberately created a system that, if you’re not paying attention, can significantly boost their profits.

By my estimation, a rental like mine would typically generate about €40 in profit for Hertz. But through clever design, they turned that into about €450 by breaking the usual patterns.

Step one: when the customer is stressed, offer things that sound helpful but are actually upselling excess waivers and other add-ons.

Step two: sneak in a Fuel Purchase option for €73. I brimmed the car right next to the airport when I returned it, but I won’t see that money back either.

Step three: hand the customer a docket with tiny print (which my ageing eyes now struggle to read without glasses), and ask them to sign here, here, and here – all while chatting away – and with no workflow difference when accepting or rejecting. €430 added there also.

A Hertz car rental slip full of small print.
My rental slip that caught me out.

So, because I was busy with the kids, wife, and general airport stress, I signed without paying proper attention. I never usually buy these optional extras.

With taxes, it was just a smidge under €600 in total.

But this time, I accepted the charge. I think I was tricked into it, but there’s nothing I can do. I contacted Hertz, complained, but was told, “No, you signed, you pay.”

And it’s a brilliantly designed system. When you decline, you sign. When you accept, you sign. You get used to signing every time. It’s easy to slip in an acceptance instead of a decline, and then you’re stuck.

So a rental agreement that was supposed to be under €500 turned into €1,133.35 once taxes were accounted for. I’m gutted. Money is already tight this year.

Well done, Hertz and your desk chap. You tricked me out of a substantial amount of money. You win. You’ve increase your profit on this rental by a factor of 10, so even if I don’t use you again for a decade, you’re still ahead. I rarely get tricked, but you managed it.

All I can do now is what I usually do when life hands me lemons—make lemonade, vent on my blog, and move on. I’ve paid my “stupid tax” for 2024. It won’t happen again.

It’s a cleverly designed process they’ve created, clearly aimed at getting people to pay extra at the desk. And it’s not just Hertz that does this—I just expected better from them. They’re supposed to be one of the better firms.

If you were designing the process with the customer not making mistakes in mind, you’d make them specifically write accepted.

The ultimate test as to whether this is sneaky is whether people ever find themselves doing the opposite, and not taking out such cover and extras when they do, in fact, want them.

A little change on this website

In the past, this website was sort of my place to keep family and friends in touch. I first set it up in 2005, just before going away to Peru on travels. It was a great. Facebook had been invented but wasn’t generally available or popular yet, other platforms weren’t well thought through or scattered, Twitter didn’t exist. But installing WordPress on my cheap Yahoo web hosting turned out to be one of the easiest ways to publish content and share it with the world.

But then the day came when I upset some far right people, and I realised some content had to go away. My trust in the world diminished. A man shouted abuse aimed at me at our house one night. Nobody else in the family witnessed this, incredibly – the kids were asleep, my wife was brushing her teeth with an electric toothbrush, and all I did was simply close the bedroom window and ignore the man. No point feeding a fire.

That was the moment when I realised that being hyper online, sharing everything, and also trying to fight to protect people from the malevolent sides of society came at a cost. Before that I’d been campaigning against Brexit, and continued to do so.

A year after that abusive night – I had a heart attack. I document some of that here, and here. I don’t recommend it, but I did realise that for most of my life I lived under a constant strain. As a kid I attended seven or eight (I actually lost count!) schools before I was twelve. I’d lived in multiple countries, and most of that with an abusive, violent and frequently drunk father. Each school was a new challenge – standing out, but then also being reasonably bright, and a bit weird was tough. But I learned about people, what makes them tick, and also that the only thing that really worked once a bully had decided you were a victim was to fight back. You could win a battle with words, or you could win it physically. It worked.

It always worked.

And it has to stop. I’m too old, too tired, too spread thin to fight and, more importantly, to take the damage. Obviously I haven’t been in a physical fight in a very very long time, but verbal fights? Arguments? Online battles with the world? Plenty. And I see many people just quietly standing at the side. They might agree, but they’re not going to fight that battle.

I disagree with ignoring injustice, but I’m also at that stage where I think that fighting small battles is pointless when there’s a broader war going on. So instead, from today, I’m turning my mind to making this blog about the intersections between design, technology, publishing and ethics.

Why? Because this is the stuff I know about these days. That’s all. And I hope I can make it interesting and useful to others.

The EU are bullying the UK

A short screenplay, by me.

It’s a Monday morning at a small train station on a mainline. It’s bustling as business travellers head to London for their week’s business. The air is cool, with people blowing little clouds of steam as they head into the station from their taxis and cars.

Mr Hock, a late-middle aged man with a red face and bumpy nose caused by years of excessive alcohol and rich food approaches the ticket office. Miss Nowak, a young Polish woman living in the UK for five years now, is behind the glass, and looks up as Mr Hock sets down his briefcase.

Miss Nowak (neutrally): Good morning. How can I help you?

Mr Hock (confidently): I’d like an open return ticket to London Euston please.

Miss Nowak: That will be £193 please. Are you paying by card?

Mr Hock (with irritation): £193? I’m not travelling first class then, how much for standard class?

Miss Nowak: That *is* standard class. If you need to pay less you can travel out of peak hours. Would you like that?

Mr Hock (exasperated): That’s outrageous! How can it cost so much? I used to travel this way a lot in the eighties and it only cost £20!

Miss Nowak looks down for a moment, then regards the queue of people behind Mr Hock.

Miss Nowak: I guess things have changed. Do you want a ticket or not?

Mr Hock, squinting one eye: Why are you bullying me?

Miss Nowak (confused): What? I… no, this is just how the prices work. Do you want a ticket or not?

Mr Hock (his face reddening): Well can’t you give me a special price?! I’m a very important person you know! People in shops often negotiate you know!

Miss Nowak: I can’t do that, and look, there are other peo….

Mr Hock (interrupting): I will pay £80! Not a penny more! And it must be first class, on the next train to London as I have a very important meeting at ten o’clock and will miss out on getting a very important job if I don’t get there on time!

Miss Nowak: I’m sorry, but rules are rules and I’m not allowed to give you a discount. If you want to go to London you’ll have to try a different way. Now please pay, or go, there’s a queue.

Mr Hock, now furious, grabs his briefcase and storms away to the exit of the station. Looking at his watch, he realises that if he misses the next train he’ll be late for his meeting, and then it dawns on him! A brilliant idea! He grabs his phone and scrolls through his contacts, looking for his friend John.

Mr Hock: John? Hi John! Yes… can you hear me OK it’s a bit… yes, good… OK, remember when we used to watch Scrapheap Challenge? Great wasn’t it? Shows how easy it is to make a vehicle! I need to get to London for 10am. It’s far too long to drive, and the train company is bullying me for £193! But if we can just knock up a home made train in an hour I can make my meeting and…

John interrupted, his voice is a little distorted over a poor mobile connection: Roger? What are you on about? We can’t build a train in an hour… Scrapheap Challenge is just a show and…

Mr Hock: Poppycock! The show only ever lasted an hour and they built all sorts of wonderful machines in that time!

John: No, it doesn’t work like that. These things are carefully orchestrated to make entertainment, and in real life making a train in an hour is impossible.

Mr Hock pulls his phone away from his head and stares at it, shaking with fury, before bringing it back to his ear.

Mr Hock: I see. Well if I fail to get to the meeting, it’s YOUR fault! I’m fed up of people with a can’t do attitude! What happened to plucky English spirit eh? EH? We need to stop letting train firms bully us with their inflexibility, high costs and hatred of people like us! I am proud! I fought in two world wars and won! Well not me personally, no, John… but people like me! And we didn’t make bouncing bombs in two hour…

[muffled voice on phone]

Mr Hock: Yes I know I saw it in a film, and it lasted two hours, it was amazing. Plucky English heroes!

John: You’ve gone mad, Roger. What are you on about? You don’t know anything about bombs or trains. It’s simply impossible. And even if you do make it, National Rail won’t just let you put it on the railway… and… why am I even bothering with this?

Mr Hock: Well it’s people like you that hold people like me back! This should be easy! John… John?

Mr Hock looks at his phone and realises John has hung up. He looks around, sees a taxi, and raises his arm. He gets in. The screen fades.

The taxi pulls up outside a scrapyard, and Mr Hock looks, optimistically, at all the materials there that he can use for his project. A large man in greasy overalls, dismantling an old car, eyes him up as he gets out of the taxi and approaches.

Mr Hock: Good morning!

Large man: Alright. What d’ya want?

Mr Hock: I’d like to make a train! I have one hour. Well, fifty minutes.

The large man stares at Mr Hock, up and down, slowly, without answering. Mr Hock starts to feel uneasy.

Mr Hock: Well?

Large man: Is this a gag or summat?

Mr Hock: I’m deadly serious.

The large man starts to laugh.

Mr Hock: What? Are you one of them? Are you in cahoots with the train company? Is this a conspiracy to take away my freedom on trains?

The large man, between laughs: Fuck off!

Mr Hock turns, and gets his phone out of his pocket. He dials a number and puts it to his head.

Mr Hock: Yes, hello, is that Stephen Barclay? Well, it looks like I can’t get to London for today after all. Yes, I know I wanted the job of chief negotiator in your department… yes… I appreciate that, it’s just I have some minor things to sort out, all fixable with technology of course, and then I’ll be there… Stephen? Stephen? Hello?

Screen fades out.

Finding a missing person in South America (and elsewhere)

I promised, ages ago, that I’d write up some tips on how to find somebody who’d gone missing in South America. Recently I had an email from somebody in the same situation which has spurred me into action.

Since 1997 I’ve found or been found by my mother, my brothers and my sister. Here I’m sharing some ideas and tips that I wish I’d known when I started.

Before I start

What I’m going to tell you may help improve your chances of finding somebody who’s missing. It may not, but I suspect it won’t hurt because these are things to add to what you would do naturally anyway. I can’t promise they’ll make any difference, but had I done them I may well have found my father before rather than after he’d died. But hindsight is always perfect. Hopefully by sharing this I can help you.

Whether finding my father would have made my life or his life any better, I don’t know. And you’ll have to think about that for your own situation. Sometimes people hide or disappear for a reason, and finding them may not help. On the other hand, they may have no idea that actually they’re still loved in spite of what’s gone before. Who knows?

I hope that if you use these tips they help you achieve what you need to achieve. It’s not easy missing a friend or a family member. It’s not easy finding them. It’s not easy reconciling what’s happened. The important thing is to be open, forgiving, and at peace with yourself when you set out. If you want them to say sorry, to be humble or to suddenly love you then you should probably not start out. If you want to show them your love and be a person in their life, even if that’s a small part of their life, then go for it. Anything else is setting yourself up for disappointment and heartbreak.

I’m going to refine this post over time. It’s not cast in stone. What you read is based on nothing more than my own personal experience and understanding. It’s not definitive. You will have your own things to add.

So let’s get searching

I’m going to break this up into a few parts to break down the problem.

1. Gather all the data

You’re going to need every address, phone number, email, photo and location possible, because that’s where you’re going to look. You can do a lot of this without leaving home, if you’re organised. Get it together. Scan or photograph everything so that you can store it somewhere off-site like Skydrive or Dropbox. These will be important documents in your search – don’t risk losing them. Don’t carry them with you on a trip. You’re going to use this data to create a one page letter and email to send out to as many people as possible.

2. Think about differences

There are key things that will differentiate the person you’re looking for compared to those in the country they’ve settled in. Language, looks, and so on. But there will also be their interests. Were they big tennis, pool, or football players? They may have taken it up in their new location. List everything that is distinctive about this person relative to where they live. I’d divide this list into culture (languages, country of origin etc), interests (sports, pastimes, hobbies), and work.

Then, tackle each one. If you’re dealing with an English speaker, perhaps they’ve tried teaching it in order to make some money? It’s a common way for travelling types to make ends meet. If they’re mad keen on pool, they probably headed off to the local pool halls. If they’re computer programmers, they may have tried to do that. This gives you targets in your search.

3. Find the matches

So, now you have a list of things about the person, and some data. Start to work out how to match things up.

For example, with my father he liked pool (and billiards and so on), gambling, drinking, watching sports, puzzles, and he spoke English and Spanish. With the data I had there were about 12 cities which he seemed to have written from and talked about. So, for English I need a list of all English schools in each of those cities. For pool, every pool and billiard hall. Gambling is trickier – but casinos can be worth checking out. For sports and drinking, think sports bars. Link things together. You have limited resources, so look at the best possibilities based on the data and knowledge you have. Did most letters come from one city?

Then there’s the most important – embassies, consulates and honorary consuls. At least, that’s what they’re called in Britain. You need to contact as many of these in your target regions as possible. The people who work at these places are often well connected within their local communities. They may not be able to facilitate directly, for confidentiality reasons (after all, not everybody wants to be found) but they can pass a message on.

4. Time to get organised!

OK, you know what you need to think about, now it’s time to get organised. I’d personally create a database or spreadsheet into which all this data can be pumped in. That means you can later run a mail merge to produce letters to each of these targets. In my naivety I only sent mail to all the embassies in South America.

5. The letter itself.

You’re going to create a letter describing the person you’re looking for, his or her names, and, most importantly, photographs. Nowadays colour printing is cheap, so scan in those old pictures and include them in the letter somewhere or on a separate sheet. If you’re on a budget, use a black and white laser printer.

So, you found them. Now what?

This is where it gets tricky. You find your missing person. Depending how that happens, you either have to initiate contact, or make friendly contact happen.

Here’s another list…

1. Don’t assume it’s really them

You get an email back. You need to meet up, perhaps, or something else… perhaps they need help? Do be careful you’re not being scammed. There are a lot of people who are hungry, poor, or plain greedy and they might just seize the chance to get some money out of you. Be wary. If you’re meeting them for the first time, ensure it’s in a safe, public and neutral place.

2. The pain

Here’s another potential issue – depending on the nature of the separation, establishing a fresh link could be incredibly painful. They could be in a relatively bad way. They could be angry about being found. They could be happy, but emotionally messed up about it all. Do not underestimate the problems here. Be prepared to be strong, to walk away if you have to. If I’d found my father and he’d tried to manipulate me like he did when I was a teenager then I don’t know for sure if I’d have coped. I’m far stronger today, but who knows? Would I regress? It’s impossible to tell.

So, make sure you have support on hand – either with you if you’re meeting in person, or on the end of a phone line.

3. And then…

Once you have re-established contact… you now have the long path. My sister and I coincidentally started to look for each other around the same time and we worked out where we both were. She approached me first, after months of deliberating about how to do it. I’d similarly been waiting for a while, and worrying.

The thing you have to remember though is that it’s not all going to be just like a normal relationship. The gaps and the different lives you’ve experienced will make things different. You won’t be visiting each other every week, or acting like brother/sister or mother/daughter for the rest of your lives – the relationship will take time and real work to make things happen. You’ll go to social events if invited. You’ll send cards and gifts. At times it could feel one sided – you may be overwhelmed, or the other person might be. All I can say is that once you know each other you can work on filling in the gaps. Don’t rush it. It’ll happen if you give it time.

The findability thing

In 1997 I hadn’t seen or spoken to my mother, father, brothers or sister for years. I didn’t know where they lived, what they did, or exactly how they might look. My half-sister and my half-brother I knew the least.

In 1998 I found my mother, brother and half-brother in a remarkable half hour of work one lunchtime! I simply rang every address and phone number I could find and asked if they knew them. Within no time I was speaking to my half-brother, that evening with my mother. Problem solved.

My father… well, you can read the story here on this blog and then viewing the newer posts in that archive. There are twelve at the time of writing, you should start with the oldest.

My sister… this is where “findability” works out. I consciously made a decision around 2001 that I should be easy to find online. Since around then I’ve been the top ranking “David Coveney” on Google. But that’s not what she first searched for, because she didn’t even know she had a brother…

It works the other way – if you have a blog and you’re looking for someone with a reasonably uncommon name, create a post about them. If you searched for “Chris Coveney” then for years a post on this site about my father would come up highly in Google. It gave a chance. I thought my father might Google himself. He didn’t. But his daughter did. And as a consequence, Maria, my half-sister, found me a few years ago. Happy days!

This is what I call passive searching – you set everything up to make things as easy as possible for people to either let themselves be found, or to find you. Because maybe, and you can hope, the person you’re looking for is missing you too.

If nothing else, running a blog will let them know how you are – they may not want to contact you, but they can follow your life, your loves and your family in a public and open way. Obviously, be careful what you publish.

Get out there, look around, be prepared, and be open. Good luck, and I hope you find who you’re looking for. If you have a story to share, please do so in the comments section below.

What It’s Like to Dine Out When You’re Veggie

Imagine, you arrive at the restaurant. It’s slick, it’s luscious. Wonderful smells assault your nose.

You’re hungry. Very hungry. This is going to be great!

So, you sit down, the waiter comes over.  Oddly, he doesn’t hand you a menu.  Instead, he decides to tell you what you can eat.

“Tonight, for starters, you can have smoked duck breast with confit duck fritter, orange & shallot dressing.”

“Sounds delicious!” you reply, “What are the other options?”

“I’m sorry sir, that’s the only dish we have for starters.”

“Oh, OK, well, good job it’s tasty! What’s for mains?”

“Roast Duck Breast with spiced plums, shallot puree, spring onions & crispy confit duck,” replies the waiter.

“And?”

“Sir, that’s the only option for you tonight I’m afraid.”

“Bit… heavy on the duck, isn’t it?”

“Sir, you like Duck?”

“Well yes,” you reply, “but twice in one meal is a bit much. Don’t you have anything else?”

“No sir, that’s your only option.”

“Not much of an option. Still, I’m sure it’ll be nice. And what do you do for dessert?”

“Oh sir, naturally we have about twenty desserts you can choose from!” he exclaims, “You can have chocolate mousse, creme brulée, a variety of ice creams…”

You decide to interrupt him and then… realise that it won’t change anything. Your a minority voice – everybody else is offered ten dishes, it’s only you that’s stuck on duck.

And that, my friends, is what many restaurants are like for vegetarians. You get a single cheese based starter, a single cheese based main, and lots and lots of dessert choices. I’d love it if more restaurants got with it and offered a broader range of food. I also think a lot of restaurants could improve their week-night takings by offering healthier food… people who travel a lot for work don’t need to make themselves sick as a result of eating out four or five nights a week.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/unanoslucror/7314646402/ by Jon Smith on Flickr, CC-BY-SA 2.0

A Better Type of Criminal

Arica is a relative crime free city, but as with anywhere it pays to be attentive. Most crime in Chile is opportunistic in nature, as opposed to the occassional strangle muggings and minor ATM kidnappings you have to be wary of in Bolivia and Peru.

So I heard this story, of an eminent British archaelogist* I met there.  He and his wife had been eating in a restaurant on main street and it seems someone quietly removed their bag.

But what I found fascinating was that the thieves went to some trouble to return their passports to the consulate. Consequently they were able to continue their travels relatively unimpeded.

If only all criminals were so considerate.

* it’s not difficult to find an archaelogist in Arica…they’re attracted to the area like flies to the proverbial. The ultra-dry environment of the region preserves like no other place in the world.

Laguna Colorada, Bolivia

We’re about 120km from the nearest town, so zero connectivity here. This will be posted on my return.

We’re at around 4900m up in a small hostel near Laguna Colorada. By Bolivian standards it’s comfortable but the altitude is really hard work and I’ve learned to be careful not to stand up too quickly.

It’s been a day of extreme scenery, sometimes feeling positively martian (in fact, scientists studying mars use the Atacama as the nearest option available on our planet). At Laguna Verde we took advantage of the hot spring there, but I quickly regretted it when getting out. Heat + cold + altitude made many of us dizzy and I never recovered all afternoon.

But that didn’t diminish the joy of seeing thousands of flamingoes here at Laguna Colorada. An amazing sight along with clouds of borax blown up by the winds.

The group I’m riding with is pretty cosmopolitan, Alex a Swedish/French guy, Diana a Spanish girl, Karim, with German, French and Arabic backgrounds and Pablo from Chile with Russian ancestry.  And they’re a great bunch to travel with…a lot of jokes and ribaldry.

My hope now is that I acclimatise quickly, but the diet isn’t really full of iron so I’m not optimistic.

Tonight we’re sleeping in the coldest room I ever sat in. It’s -8 and there’s no freaking heating. With all that geothermal energy just beneath us this is irritating to say the least. And it makes me wonder how Andean peoples ever reproduce.

On the upside going outside reveals an amazing starscape. So much is visible it takes your breath away (as does the cold and altitude, but hey, I had some left!)  I’ve taken photos which will be added to the gallery on my return.  Just wait and see.

Off to San Pedro

Just about to start packing for San Pedro de Atacama.

I’ve been there before, so it’s a relatively familiar spot, though I didn’t spend long in the town.  So this time I’m going to explore the locality a little more.  I’m even thinking of sticking with it for a week or so and treating as a relaxing holiday, with a trip planned to Salar de Uyuni for a few days (if I can find one) as well as other shorter jollies.

I had been thinking of heading to La Paz, but I’ve been warned that Bolivia’s a bit of an unstable place right now and, just two weeks ago, a group of travellers were stranded in Uyuni for 19 days due to a blockade by local protesters.

As a consequence, I feel that I may be better off not spending more time than strictly necessary in the country.  Although I’ll miss out on La Paz and some other sights I’d rather make sure I can get home in a timely manner and without stress or hassles.

Anyway, one highlight is that because this is an El Niño winter it has rained in parts of the desert and that means the chance of seeing a so-called ‘blooming desert’ when all the flowers come out.

If that’s the case I could be returning for a day or so to Arica.  This isn’t a bad thing as one piece in my father’s puzzle still needs to be researched, and I will be able to attend to that on my return.  It’s not a big thing, but something I’d like to do if possible.

Then it will be on to Lima for a night or two depending on flights, and home.  Can’t wait to get back to the family, to be honest, and it’s just 12 days away now!

So, tonight, after another little spell at the English Institute giving students some practice, I’ll hop on a bus for a twelve hour ride to San Pedro.  Of course, this brings up people saying that I’m a hard core traveller.  But really, this is what you probably think I’m riding on http://www.contemporarynomad.com/2008/09/ whereas the reality is that I’ll have a semi-cama seat as shown here: http://www.turbus.cl/servicios.html and riding in a modern, well maintained coach.  It’s not so bad!

Itinerary Options

I’m still trying to decide what to do next, but I think I’m forming a plan.

I did debate staying here for all the time I have, teaching some web stuff maybe, for free.  But nobody seemed that interested when I mentioned it, so I think it’s worth heading off.

I’ve already been to San Pedro de Atacama, but heck, it’s a nice spot on the planet and is on the way to Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni the world’s largest salt flat.  I love extremes, and that’s as far as it can get, I reckon.

My only worry is that it’ll probably be bloody cold up in the mountains, so I’ll go and buy another fleece and a hat, methinks.  Maybe a pair of gloves to?

After that, La Paz and a bit of exploring there, then take the boat across Lake Titicaca to Puno, then to Cuzco.  If I have time there and feel up to it I can do the Machu Picchu trail as it’s the right season to do it and the weather’s pleasant there right now.  Puno to Machu Picchu are already known to me, but the trail would be new, as would be crossing the lake.  I also know it’s quite easy to get flights from Cuzco to Lima or from La Paz to Lima, should my itinerary slip a little.

So what do you think?  Sounds like a plan?

Arrangements, part dos

Anyone who’s experienced the death of someone close to them will know that there is often a lot to do.  No exceptions here, plus the added pressure of limited time.  However, I’m not entirely unhappy about the time thing… makes me get things done.

Cementaria Parque de Arica

Center stage, as ever!

So, following the funeral I went yesterday to the cemetary to finish off the paper work.  The tomb is owned in perpetuity by me, although a typical arrangement, that may seem strange in Europe, is to simply rent a tomb for a number of years.  Once that time is up the coffin is disinterred and transferred to a shared grave.  I also had to sort out maintenance again, in perpetuity.  It’s not a lot each year, but with no easy way of paying fifteen pounds to an account in Chile every now and then I had no option.

I actually saw this happening on my second visit.  You could see a clearly subdued couple watching as the coffin was lifted from a tomb, cleaned up, sealed in plastic, then loaded onto a hearse.  It was a sad sight.

And it’s all made slightly bizarre by the music that’s piped into the cemetary.  If you have a funeral it does seem to be suitably sombre, but at all other times they appear to often play cheerful music for the workers to enjoy.

Piping out the tunes

It’s tricky feeling sombre and respectful when you can hear an Abba song.

Still, at father’s tomb it wasn’t so audible.

I took some photos, walked around, paid my respects, and headed back to town for a meeting with the reverend David Hucker who carried out the bilingual service.  He’s clearly a nice man, and initially refused my attempt to pay for the service.  It had to be turned into a donation to his church before he’d accept.  Given the service included a singer, I was amazed.  The kindness of people here doesn’t cease to amaze me.  We chatted about why he and his wife came here, my own background and so on.  All very pleasant.

Headstones

I felt like I’d taken enough of Joaquin’s time so I decided I’d make the effort to arrange the headstone entirely on my own.  With limited Spanish and nothing more than a vague idea of where a stonemason may be, I set off.

Now, this is where you have to admire the Chilean desire for efficiency.  The hospital is at one end of a road approximately 1km long.  At the other, lies the municipal cemetary (not the one Chris is in).  Along this road are numerous funeral directors and various parked hearses, ranging from custom made examples to tired looking old American station wagons.  Given this is one of the more important routes to the hospital, I can’t help wonder if it helps reassure incoming patients.  Still, it’s efficient.

After some aimless wandering I spotted a suitable stone mason, went inside, and did my best.  On Monday morning I’m either getting exactly what I wanted, or a very rough approximation with some crazy typeface.  Let’s see.  Again, Chilean flexibility and a can-do attitude helped.  I explained I wasn’t likely to be around for much longer and that I couldn’t wait the usual week.  He made it happen.

The House

It was very dark when I took this picture of the house Chris lived in.

The next job of the day was to visit the house where my father lived.  He’d rented a room here for over ten years.

I had a real shock when the first item brought in was his suitcase.  It’s the only recognisable item I saw in his belongings – the same cream coloured Samsonite suitcase he’d used throughout much of the eighties.  It was a touch battered, but it even still carried a sticker for a hotel in Sluis in the Netherlands (a small, sleepy town once notorious for having the highest density of sex shops in the world) at which I remember him buying me waffles with cream and strawberries each time we visited on his tours.

From there on in it went a little downhill.  There was no wallet, no photo album, no sign of his early past in South America.  Apart from a couple of postcards from his days in Belgium(!) and his passports going back to the mid-eighties there was nothing.  None of my letters to him were there, nor any photos of me or any of his children.  I still have to visit another place where he apparently kept some stuff, but mostly I believe they were just things he sold on the market where had a small spot.

The old suitcase

So what did I find out about him?

Looking at his passports he travelled an awful lot up until around 2006 when he broke his hip-bone in a fall during a tussle of some sort.  He’d been trading in clothes and, for a while, also appeared to be running some sort of homeopathy service.  He was buying significant quantities of remedies from a german supplier in South America whose exact location I’ll be working out shortly.  He had three books in his belongings, two of which were on homeopathy, with the other being an encyclopaedia.

The rest was mostly junk.  Old lottery tickets, some snacks he sold, a collection of out of date milk cartons, old clothes (though mostly in good condition – looks like he still preferred to be smart!) and a lot of random notes.  No notes, however, spoke of feelings, interestingly.  There was no journal, no address book even.  Just accounts of his work, routes he was taking and so on.

To a twelve year old, this hotel did the best waffles in the world. Ever.

There weren’t any signs of written correspondence with friends anywhere.  I did, however, find a printout with what would appear to have been an e-mail address.  So I now know that at least sometimes he went online.  Maybe he did find me after all but opted to keep quiet?  Who knows.

The house itself was relatively clean, with the downstairs occupied by the landlady and her son, and upstairs by various lodgers.  But my father didn’t really spend much time there – as had been the case when I knew him, he preferred to be out at bars or selling at the market, using his modest room as merely a place to sleep at night and to store a few things.

And that’s really it, so far.  There’s little more evidence.

The Wake

After this it was off to the bars where my father liked to hang out.  He had a few acquaintances and friends there.  People he would drink and play billiards with whilst arguing about sports, politics and any other subject that caught his attention.  It’s fair to say he hadn’t changed much, in many ways.

Myself, Rafael, and a guy whose name is evading me right now. I’m drinking pancho.

So we’d agreed to meet up at the pool hall and have a few drinks and a game of billiards (or pool or whatever it’s called) in his honour.

It was fascinating to sit in the places my father sat, and play the tables he’d have played at.  I didn’t get somber.  In fact it reminded me that his life, whilst poor, wasn’t terrible.  He had friends, and he had things to enjoy.  That’s a big part of what we all need.  So we drank a little, and I learned the favoured drinks of his friends – one called pancho, which is basically beer and Fanta mixed together, and another called hota which is a mix of wine and, believe it or not, Coca-Cola.  Yes, I was surprised by that one too!

Later, as I tried to encourage one particular drunk friend of my father’s to NOT play with my camera, Joaquin told me he’d a call for his mariachi band to play a serenade.  “Would you like to come,” he asked.

How could I refuse?

The bar and stools where he often sat

About two hours later I concluded that Chilenos are, essentially, completely mental.  But in a nice way :o)  They arrive, in their slightly too small costumes, from different directions at the specified address.  And they must keep quiet outside and not be discovered.  Because nobody expects the mariachi.

At the allotted moment they all pile into the house and the singing starts.  The lady whose 50th birthday it was seemed bemused at first, but appeared to enjoy.  Her husband, however, was a strong, surly type who looked like someone who made a living from ripping lorry tyres from their rims with his bare hands.

Still, he didn’t kill any of us so I gues it was OK for him.

And then it was off for a burger.  I was granted my wish of a vegetarian sandwich, which turned out to be a chip sandwich with salad and avocado in it that tasted suspiciously meaty (cooked on the same griddle, no doubt)… but I had to chuckle at many of them ordering nothing more exciting than a cup of tea with their meal.  Which was, of course, served in china, with a saucer.  Don’t see that much in English burger bars at 2am in the morning…

A burger and a nice cup of tea at the end of a night out.

It’s now Saturday here and I’ll admit to a slightly lazy day.  I got up late, wandered around town, had yet another terrible breakfast (they’re better in Peru, I have to say) and generally felt slightly subdued.  The day before had been quite happy, really, and now it was simply about going back to normal.  I have no tasks left until Monday, and attempts to find options such as teaching people how to create websites have failed to elicit much interest.

So I’ll go through the small bag of items I took from my father’s place, take some notes, and generally meander today.  Don’t expect an exciting post tomorrow!  I also have to decide what to do next.  I still have two weeks to use up, but no clear leads in other countries.  I suspect once I’m finished here it might just be time for a bit of a holiday.  I just need to decide – relaxed, or exploratory?  Any thoughts?