The One That Got Away: Travelling in the Time of Covid

by Ken Haley

In 2020, Australian author Ken Haley mapped out an enticing menu of travel destinations, comprising the Caribbean island states for main course, with Central America for dessert. Main course soon turned into obstacle course. Cuba was a breeze, but then the world went into Covid lockdown mode and he had to decide whether to push on. As a pioneer wheelchair traveller, Haley knew exactly what to do. He took the brakes off.

After an unplanned detour to Trumpian Florida, he returned to the tropics intent on dividing his time between sun worship, historical exploration and observation of life’s realities for the community of West Indian nations. In a year that wasn’t long on fun, Haley had his share but he also met his quota of hardship and risks – from developing hurricanes to a no-longer-dormant volcano, from robbery to an acute health crisis that had him wondering whether he might have been wiser to buy a one-way ticket in advance.

2020 was the year most of us stayed at home. Ken Haley turned an accident of timing into a rollicking, but dangerous adventure. The result is a triumph: a humorous and penetrating insight into a world grappling with an unforeseen calamity and a rare and empathetic travel book.

324 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2021

About the author

Ken Haley is one of Australia’s most widely travelled authors. To date he has visited 143 countries at length. He became a paraplegic in 1991, but as far as Ken is concerned the only difference this has made is that he now observes the world from a sitting position. A Walkley Award-winning journalist, Ken has worked on the foreign desk of The Times, Sunday Times and Observer in London, at the Gulf Daily News in Bahrain and on the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. Ken has also worked at Melbourne’s The Age and as a newspaper sub-editor in Athens, Johannesburg and Windhoek, Namibia and as a university tutor and freelance editor. His previous books are Emails from the Edge: A Journey Through Troubled Times and Europe @ 2.4km/h. He lives in Melbourne, Australia; his most recent title is The One That Got Away, Travels in the Time of Covid.

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

There must be thousands of Australians whose travel plans went awry with the arrival of Covid in 2020, but few can have turned an accident of timing into an extraordinary adventure the way that Ken Haley did.

Haley's plans were to do island-hopping through the Caribbean, and then explore Central America.  In February 2020, three weeks before his departure date, Covid had emerged in Australia with 21 infections.  But nobody had a clue about what was in store, Australia's borders were still open, and so he flew out to Canada, that being the cheapest option to get to Cuba.

Each chapter is prefaced by a brief summary of the Covid situation in the relevant country.  Canada, on February 21st 2020, had 9 infections and no deaths.  There was no curfew, no quarantine and everything was open.  Needless to say that the situation was entirely different when, having accomplished two-thirds of his journey, he flew back into Toronto in November 2020.  Then, there were 297,390 infections, and there had been 10,953 deaths.  No wonder he writes in his final chapter:

Closer to home, Australia's death toll was 909, rising to 910 in April 2021.  As a spreader of death, that constant companion on my tortuous route through the Caribbean littoral had met its match in very few parts of the world.  Although a belated and comparatively slow vaccine rollout lay ahead, the Australian people had shown a maturity and collective will that might have surprised them and certainly impressed my overseas friends. (p.310)

But though Haley calls Covid his constant companion, (even nicknaming it Covey), this is not a book about the pandemic.  It's about how, with a mixture of chutzpah, stubbornness, luck and courage (sometimes crossing over into foolhardiness) he managed to negotiate ad hoc variations in travel restrictions, quarantine, closed hotels and eateries, plus the constant threat of flight cancellations and closed borders, to have a surprisingly great trip.  Reading about it in this book, we learn all kinds of interesting things about the Caribbean, its colonial past and its hurricane-ravaged present.

An inveterate traveller and travel writer (see my review of Europe @2.4km/h), Haley had wanted to test the stereotypes of the Caribbean:

...we have vivid pictures in our heads of places unvisited long before they get replaced by pictures on a handheld device.

The Caribbean: cool daiquiris.  Central America: rank sweat.
The Caribbean: rich. Central America: poor.

I already perceived how simplistic my notion of these imaginary worlds must be.  Everything I had ever seen in two-thirds of a century told me that for a few, or a few thousand, to be wealthy in any economy, most of the population must be worse off.  So the underside of the Caribbean and the opulence that sustains the Spanish inheritance in that region between North and South America were going to be worth travelling halfway round the world to see, if only to correct my vision. (p. x)

But Haley does more than address the stereotypes. If the Caribbean has never been on your bucket list, you will discover from this book that there are historic city centres to rival what's in Europe. 

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2021/11/12/t...

[Jo | Booklover Book Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

I certainly never expected to be reading a new release travel memoir two years into a global pandemic, and written by an Australian (in a wheelchair) no less… But life really is full of wonderful surprises.

The recurrent theme within Ken Haley's The One That Got Away: Travelling in the time of COVID is that of making the most of whatever life throws at you… From his perceptive observations of both the societies (cultural and governmental) he experiences and individual colourful characters he meets along the way, to how he navigates the ever-changing hurdles placed in front of him, whether COVID-related or a flight of steps to a hotel room or tourist vista, Haley’s is a refreshing outlook from which to ride shotgun.

While to his great credit Haley eschews the terms brave and intrepid, you have got to admire his faith in relying on the goodness of strangers to lend a helping hand when needed. Continue reading: https://www.bookloverbookreviews.com/...

[Lucy A · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting travel story for a year that most of us spent at home. What I found challenging was the author's sheer stubbornness, and absolute refusal to go home until he came very close to dying in a Canadian hotel. The privileged position the author held over the locals was clear throughout his travels, and he didn't hesitate to skip Covid quarantine when he felt he was above it. While it was an occasionally funny and amusing tale, the author's own attitudes were hard to get past.

[Angelica Payne · Rating 2 out of 5]

An Australian author's account of his travels in Central America and the Caribbian as a wheelchair user during the first year of the Covid 19 pandemic. Personally I found his writing to be too dry, but some of the incidents he encountered were quite eye opening.