JOEL GRIFFETT

Pre-order ‘Long Road to Nowhere: The Lost Years of Richard Trevithick (Part One)’ now, HERE.

Boarding the plane at what felt like an impossibly early time before take-off was bound to be a mistake. The gate was due to close at 21:40 and I kept expecting the plane to continue filling up but as it would appear, I was one of the last ones to board. Once I knew for certain the doors were firmly locked and the chocks were away, I did the courteous thing and move away from the unfortunately placed old woman to my right, sparing her from 12 hours of torture sat next to me. Just to be sure I asked the steward, or rather told the steward, and he told me I couldn’t sit in the window seat – the cushion was absent. The middle seat suited me just fine because now I could manspread and twitch all night long as we flew across the Atlantic.
What I had been dreading all day turned out to be an incredible stroke of luck. The desperate plea I made to whichever God would listen came to fruition and for the first time in my life I managed to enjoy a plane journey. 12 hours of enforced insomnia and extreme discomfort became 12 hours of relative bliss and peace. Spreading across all three seats, I was even able to sleep about half the flight without a single dream of falling to my death. As the plane banked into Lima I was almost reluctant to disembark – not least because I had 2 hours to wait until the first bus into Miraflores was due to depart. Evading the voracious eyes of the less than reputable taxi drivers who lurked outside the arrivals terminal, I made it to the bus that now had to deal with the early morning traffic of Callao, amidst the backdrop of heavy mist that falls over Lima every morning.
Despite the hostel being half empty as I’d hoped, the tall Venezuelan guy at reception wouldn’t let me check in and take a well-deserved siesta until the official time of 12pm approached, so I was turfed back out onto the street to stroll up and down the Malecón. From my vantage point, I watched the surfers, a peaceful scene that was ruined by the city planners who decided to put a six lane highway in-between the beaches and the cliff.
All the violent twitching I had avoided on the plane had built up inside of me, so once I finally hit the horizontal, the first thirty minutes were one violent leg spasm after another whenever I reached the point of sleep. Eventually it subsided and I fell, face down and pillow over my head, into a deep slumber.

Scorching Summer in the City

The Lima I had arrived back to was no longer mired by protests, nor was the rest of the country in a state of emergency. The political situation had subsided, for now, but one thing had not: the sun. When I arrived I assumed that I was simply not used to the heat and that it had been the same almost a year ago when I was here last. Each day passed and I still couldn’t quite acclimatise; the open window by my bed provided some relief come the night, but also let mosquitos torment me as I passed through phases of fitful sleep. As I sweated my way through my first week back in Lima, I kept telling myself the unbearable heat just felt worse because I’d come straight from the UK and another grey Cornish winter. Last time I was here I had already been on the road for four months, passing through equally hot places in the Atacama desert and the jungles of Bolivia. It never occurred to me that this summer was impossibly hot even by Peruvian standards and the more I talked to the locals I started to understand that they couldn’t stand this heat either. Some hid inside all day, some suffered from migraines and when some saw this sweaty gringo take a moment in the shade they would stop to chat, sympathise and agree that the heat was unbearable.

Often restless, I am not content with being inside all day despite the heat, so most mornings I would wake up early and attempt to give myself heatstroke by going for a run along the Malecón de Miraflores, the scenic walkway that follows the cliff edge and overlooks the highway and the beaches below. As soon as I leave the UK I become a morning person and that first full day in Lima I was wide awake at 7:30am, so off I went running up and down the Malecón, returning to my hostel on the verge of collapse, gathering my breath for a moment then standing beneath a roaring jet of cold water until my core temperature had calmed down. The hostel was kind enough to give me a bed free of ants this time but even if I wanted a warm shower (I don’t) I couldn’t get one because hot water seems to be a rare commodity at this place, a magnificent old building with very limited features. But for 28 soles a night (less than £6) I got what I paid for.

Back in Miraflores

Idle men sit impatiently, talking in whispers on street corners, only to become incensed when someone like me dares to ask them to speak up. I cannot hear a word this man is saying; he is selling fruit on the street corner from a cart impossibly large for him to shift and I am trying to buy a papaya bigger than my head, but amidst the roar of traffic behind him, the incessant blaring of horns that Lima drivers use if you dare dally for any longer than a second at an intersection and his quiet voice, it’s proving much more difficult than I expected. Spanish is not my main language despite people continually mistaking me for a Spaniard or an Argentinian, but he doesn’t seem to care. He sighs, forced out of his tiny chair perched in the shade to the scales at the far end of the cart, shuffling his feet like a moody child as if to make me aware that my presence is little more than an annoyance. Even stood up this man is no more than four feet tall and the sound has to travel light-years from his mouth to my ear. Finally the transaction was complete and with the enormous papaya in one hand and a plastic bag full of bananas, peaches and grapes the size of testicles in the other I traipsed back to the hostel for breakfast. In total it cost me no more than 15 soles (about £3).

Failing to notice inconsistencies and irony is a Latin trait, or perhaps, a non-Western trait – plenty of cultures are far less beholden to logic than our own. This isn’t the first time this has happened; in Sevilla a few months ago, a homeless man approached our table at a bar in a busy square and asked me a question, again little more than a whisper. I asked him to repeat himself and he did not raise his voice a single decibel. Upon the third attempt he was genuinely annoyed, huffing, puffing and rolling his eyes. Eventually he stormed off and everyone was left confused by what felt like an intense encounter. Is it rude to ask someone to speak louder? Or am I ignorant for not having superhuman hearing? Only God knows.

Long Road to Nowhere: The Lost Years of Richard Trevthick (Part One) will be available for pre-order soon and physical copies will be on sale at Trevithick Day 2024, Saturday 27th April.