Tim Conibear: Come fly with me

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'It (is) the longing, romantic, reasonless, which lies deep in the heart of most Englishmen, to shun the celebrated spectacles of the tourist and without any concern with science or politics or commerce, simply to set their feet where few civilised feet have trod.' - Evelyn Waugh, preface for A short walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby.

I turn the page and glance around the cabin, now dimly lit as we drift slowly into the night that’s been creeping in from the east. Below, the dry folds of the Kalahari have vanished amid mists of high cloud, so I settle into my seat and read on.

When I was a kid, we often travelled by train. I remember revelling in the journey, becoming lost as we crossed into the wilderness between civilisations and immersed in the transition of countryside and culture, never once stopping to read, I hated to read, just staring out of the window as the world streamed past all blurry, longing to be lost. Then we flew, and it was cattle class all the way. Again, I never read, just watched TV. First on the big fold down screens, then on a Virgin flight in the early nineties we discovered the mini TVs. So it was TV and video games whist we sped across the world below until we were served our destination. For all those days in cattle class, I longed to recapture the romance of the train. I longed to be lost again. So today was a little fillip, a testament to one of those old adages.

Two months in a cast after a dislocated knee had been pretty tedious but in my pocket lay consolation. For years, I’ve been crammed and packed into the cheap seats but today I board the plane and turn… left, to the front, business class with torn canvas shoes, missing laces cobbled with ribbon, salt-encrusted shorts and a sun bleached t-shirt.

“Sir,” she said with a smile. “We are delighted to offer you an upgrade.”

I’ve never been upgraded, let alone called ‘Sir’. I could have kissed her.

I should have kissed her.

Regrets soon pass with a champagne welcome. And for the first time, I’m unprepared for take off, engrossed in the orgy of in-flight entertainment in my own personal lounge bed-cum-home cinema; an unaccompanied minor at the age of 28. The engines roar and we are airborne.

The south easterly has blown away the clouds and Cape Town is visible in the evening blue skies. False Bay wraps away to the right, thousands of feet below us as we climb higher and head north, into the Karoo and beyond, headed east out of Africa towards the Middle East. The engines fade and the cabin is wrapped in the warm hiss of passing air torrents. To the west, the sun is beginning to set and the horizon is glazed in deep pastels. Below is Africa: huge, empty and barren. At first, there was Cape Town then mountain passes and fertile valleys until soon the folds and contours submerge amidst the browns of the Great Plains, and all that is visible is a great and empty nothingness. Small dirt roads alongside twisted river valleys lead to lonely and distant farms. Across the plains stretch majestic empty roads, straight for as far as the eye can see, linking nothing to nobody until the fields grow ten fold and giant crop circles, irrigated green against the dirty brown, come hulking into view. And there arrives Bloemfontein and then Johannesburg, out of the desert as we trace a lonely white line overhead. The dark fills in from the east and we pick our way through flashing thunderheads, allowing me to settle back into my seat, giddy and revelling once more in the romance of travel, air travel, at last after all those cattle class false starts.

But as I looked around, I was alone. As I sat fixed to my oversized window pane, drinking in the surrounds, plotting adventure, sipping my fresh pressed mango juice and nibbling my salmon canapés, the romance of air travel was alive and well. But all about, privacy screens had been erected, noise blocking head-sets snapped on, TV’s blurred and that same romance flowed out of the cabin like the expensive booze being guzzled down by the half-wasted clientele.

Is the size and beauty of the world below no longer enough to draw us from our little business bubbles? Or have we become lost in the little dainty pleasures? What happens to that sense of wander we have when we are kids? I wonder where we lose it; I wonder where it goes. But I find it as I travel, so I suppose that’s why I go. It’ll be cattle class next time, from my business class bubble.

Never lose your sense of wander, somebody once sang.

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