6. Paradise Found

After an all too brief, much to expensive stay at the Gatwick Airport Clarion I awoke at 3:30 am to prepare for my flight to Tenerife in the Canary Islands. £105 for 5 hours of sleep, or roughly $40 an hour. I was so paranoid about over-sleeping that I requested a wake up call and set my travel alarm clock. It seemed that I had just fallen into a deep slumber when my alarm began to blare the sultry refrain from Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing”. I bolted upright and engulfed the clock with one hand, pulling it to my chest while slapping down on the alarm button with the other. It continued to play. I squinted at the time. It was only 1:30. Wait a minute… My clock doesn’t play music. I look over at the bedside table to see my cell phone vibrating across the surface, pushing pounds and pence aside. I flip open the phone.
“Hello! Cerstin.” It was a text message. I can’t imagine that she had just sent it at this hour. I’m guessing that the message took a circuitous route from La Gomera to La and then over to London.

She was informing me of how to get from the airport to the ferry when I landed on Tenerife. It looked like there were all sorts of options to get to her. There were two ferry companies that operated out of the southern port of Los Christianos. Both made the 40-mile journey to San Sebastian de la Gomera, although the Fred Olsen express was faster.

As Cerstin had flown down a few days earlier she was assuming the job of point man, realtor and social director. She went on to write that she had spent a warm day on the Vueltas beach and that she had found a nice apartmentos in Valle Glen Rey. Once I got to La Gomera there were even more travel options. Taxi, bus, ferry. She said that she would meet me at the harbor. Seems like all I need to do is make my flight. I re-set my alarm clock and go back to sleep; if only for a couple of hours.

Gatwick was a short 10-minute shuttle away. I arrived long before the British Airways counter opened so I just stood at the front of the queue. When I eventually checked in I requested an exit row with a window seat for the four-hour trip and then waltzed through the security check. By now I would have to consider myself a bit of an expert on the hot spots of the London-Gatwick airport. The is a cavernous central waiting area with winding ramps at either end that lead down to the various boarding gates. Everyone stays in this area because no one knows which gate their flight leaves from. Much like the train stations in Paris there is a large tote board in the waiting area: think of it as a sports book for travelers. It lists all the flights and their departure status but the space reserved for the gate info is blank. Kind of like a Keno card. Maybe we’re supposed to guess the right gate and win a prize from the Duty-free shop.

This common waiting area, on the main level, is filled with shops selling various sundries and souvenirs. The second floor, which rings the main floor, is where all the restaurants and food courts are located. There is also an Internet café of sorts upstairs but as it is positioned next to the Smoking Zone, with only a low wall separating the two, I couldn’t bear to sit there long enough to send any updates on my trip.

After an hour and a half of wandering around my gate was finally listed as #56. I lost £10 by having picked #42. My fellow travelers and I wound our way down the spiral ramp that dumped us into a low-ceilinged room with the requisite airport lobby seats and a snack and drink vending machine. Here we were sequestered before being allowed to actually board our plane.

As it had been a week since leaving L.A. and checking in I decided to call Tom. It was 11:00 pm there but my earlier attempts to reach him had been unsuccessful. When he came on the line he sounded somewhat detached. Had I awoken him? No, he answered. Well, what’s going on? I inquired. Not much, he responded. How’re the renovations to the house going? Slow. He asked have my trip was so far. Fine. I saw Alina, the little girl I knew from the Moscow Circus; only not so little any more. Big difference between being 10-years old and being 22. On so on with the small talk. Finally Tom interrupted to say that he had some bad news.

In the nano-second I had to brace myself before he continued my mind raced ahead to fill in the blank. Knowing Tom, it could be that a Cleveland Browns’ wide receiver had blown out his knee while riding a motorcycle illegally or that NASA had once again grounded the shuttle fleet.
His voice betrayed him however and I knew that it wasn’t going to be one of these scenarios. I fast- forwarded to the more personal possibilities…. Had one of the dogs or cats run away: or worse? Before I could settle on a trauma of my own devising Tom calmly said, “Charlie was killed.”

Charlie is the nephew of Tom’s wife, Andi, who was on his 2nd tour of Iraq. The vehicle he was traveling in hit a road-side bomb. He was 23.

I’m sure I stammered out an awkward apology or words of condolence and wished Andi luck in dealing with the loss. At that moment they announced the boarding of our plane. Tom apologized for telling me during my trip but he knew that I would want to know. He told me to have a good time and to say hello to Cerstin. I said I would: on both counts.

I numbly made my way to my seat. 21F. An exit row, window seat, only without the window. There was just the interior of the plane and a large emergency door. My row had three seats across but there were only two seats in the row in front of mine so I was able stretch my legs all the way out. I was settling in and getting my iPod and headphones all set out when the flight attendant came by to make sure that I could operate the emergency door. I assured her that I was willing and able and for her to follow me through if we ran into any trouble. Although she didn’t outwardly show it I could sense that I had put her concerns to rest with the knowledge that the passengers were now in capable hands. I think as a way to linger longer she said that I would need to put my personal items in the overhead bin for take off. She offered to store them for me and promised that she would retrieve them after we were in the air. What an obvious come on….

She prepared the cabin for take-off and then slid into the jump seat directly opposite me. According to her nametag her name was Jo. She had a wide, mischievous smile and sparkling eyes, which were crowned by golden blond hair neatly pulled back. She was very young and I assumed that she probably hadn’t been flying for that long. I asked her as much and she responded that she had been flying for 5 years. She was from Aberdeen and started with a smaller airline up there before being hired by British Airways. I, of course, fell in love with her accent. Our brief wooing was all too short however, as once the plane leveled off at 30-something thousand feet, she left to begin the cabin service.

The flight was excruciatingly uneventful. I learned that the older, British couple next to me owned an apartment on Tenerife. Aside from that they kept to themselves. Even though the woman was only about 5’2 and couldn’t have weighed more than 102 pounds she somehow managed to take up both armrests so I found myself leaning up against my window-less wall as I tried to recapture some of the sleep I didn’t get the night before.

I felt the plane begin its long, arcing descent. The other passengers were beginning to stir. Those that had windows lifted the shades and the cabin was flooded with brilliant North African sunlight. Even though the Canary Islands are part of Spain they are situated 67 miles off the western coast of Africa. They are closer to Casablanca than L.A. is to Santa Barbara or Oxford is to Memphis. Okay, so Memphis is only 58 miles from Oxford but you get the idea. And while I’m on the subject of geography, The Canary Islands have nothing to do with the little yellow songbirds. They get their name from the Latin word Canaria, for the large fierce dogs that populated the islands. The smaller island of La Gomera, where I am heading, was the last stop for Christopher Columbus before he set off to prove that the world was round. I mean to discover America. No, that’s not right. I mean to enslave the indigenous peoples. Oh whatever. On September 6, 1492 after stopping for repairs he set sail to the west. Two months later he did one of the above three things.

Tray tables and seats were returned to their original positions and Jo once again took her place opposite me.
We were about to land on the largest island of Tenerife, which is dominated by a (hopefully) extinct volcano. I gather from the awed-gasps of the other passengers that the sight of its snow-capped peak protruding through a carpet of clouds was breathtakingly beautiful. Of course, I would have known nothing of it had Jo not asked, “Did you see the snow-capped peak of the volcano protruding through a carpet of clouds?”

“No” I said as I pointed to the blank wall beside me.
“Oh, it was breathtakingly beautiful.” She said as she daintily buckled herself into her harness.
We said our farewells. She said that perhaps she’d see me on the return flight. Immigration, customs and a quick stop at a cash machine later and it was out of the terminal and into the warm tropical breezes of Tenerife. I took a taxi from the airport to the harbor where, according to Cerstin, I would need to take a ferry to La Gomera. The short distance to the harbor was filled with pleasant conversation with Ian, my South African driver. His wife is originally from La Gomera. They met in London years ago when he was on a walk-about. He told me about the aboriginal people of Gomera and how they had developed a whistling language, complete with vowels and consonants, as a way to bridge the vast valleys between the mountainous terrains.

Mountainous terrain? I thought to myself. That’s the first I had heard about that. For some reason I had pictured Gomera as a lush, tropical paradise with coconut palms swaying out over wide, sandy beaches where Cerstin and I would ride horses through the surf.

“Not much of a beach I’m afraid,” Ian informed me. “Mostly sheer cliffs and volcanic rock.”

We get to the harbor where Ian directs me to the ticket office of the Fred Olsen Express; a steel tri-hulled behemoth that transports vehicles as well as people to La Gomera. The girl behind the glass window asks if I want to buy a round-trip ticket. I do, but I tell her I don’t know exactly when I’ll be coming back. No problem. I can buy an open return. Well that might come in handy. I’ll take one of those.

I boarded the ferry and settled into a plush seat in one of the spacious lounges. Just then I hear “Sexual Healing”. Another text message. Cerstin is welcoming me to the sunny Canary Islands. It seems that she knows my schedule better than I do. I text back that I did indeed make it this far and that I would arrive in La Gomera at 2:15.

“Will you take a ferry or bus to Valle Glen Rey?” was her near instant response. I wrote back that I was on the ferry. She said that she would meet me at the harbor.

Thirty-five minutes later I was disembarking at San Sebastian. That is, 700 German tourists and me. It seems that the Canary Island in general and La Gomera in particular, is the choice destination for Germans escaping winter back home. In that respect it’s probably not unlike Argentina in the late 40s, only with newer cars and less guilt.

As we gathered our luggage, bags, backpacks and other personal items the passengers began to disperse. As the crowd of holiday tourists dispersed I slowly turned toward the entrance to the harbor to gaze upon,
no one. No Cerstin. No official welcome. Strange, but not yet worrying-some. She was probably already on island time and was on her way.

After 15 minutes, still nothing. I walked up and down the dock. I sent a text message, “Wo bist du?” Nothing. At 2:50 I tried calling. She answered. “John! Where are you?!”
“I’m at the harbor.”
“You’re at the harbor of Valle Glen Rey?”
“I guess so. I just got off the ferry. Where are you?”
“I’m sitting on the seawall looking at the water but I don’t see you.”
“You’re looking at a huge yellow and blue Fred Olsen ferry?”
“John. You are still in still in San Sebastian…didn’t you get my text messages about the ferry to Valle Glen Rey?”
“Uh….”
“Oh John, you don’t listen to me!”

The dead weight of reality and stupidity collapsed on me. So that’s what all her cryptic messages were about. The ones with strange names and locations. Apparently the tiny Island of Gomera has three harbors ringing the coast. I was on the eastern, larger of the three. Cerstin was on the western-most. Suddenly, all the talk about busses and ferries and taxies made sense. I was there; but I hadn’t arrived.
I apologized profusely and said that I would grab a taxi. She informed me that a taxi would cost about £50 and take longer as it had to go through the mountains. Again with the talk of the mountainous terrain. I ran to book the local ferry that makes stops at the two other ports. An hour later I reach my destination. Just as promised, Cerstin is waiting for me at the entrance to the harbor, sitting at an outdoor café, enjoying the sun and a coffee. I drop my bags next to the table and lean over to give her a hug and a kiss. I utilize the plop technique that I had developed earlier on the plane and fall into the chair across from her. She looks at me with a bewildering smile: that searching, wondering, elusive, Mona Lisa-esque stare.

“Oh John….” She begins “Welcome to Paradise.”