What started out as a once-in-a-lifetime trip to South America quickly turned into a panicked race home to Ireland with travel restrictions and news of the Covid19 virus hot on his heels.
Kilkenny many Conor Cadogan, who has spent the last number of years living in New York, has just returned home after the stressful ordeal of dealing with cancelled flights and closing airports.
It started about two weeks ago, after hiking from Argentina to Chile.
“I was offline for two days while hiking,” he told Eimear on KCLR Live this morning. But news of the virus soon found him.
“We had heard of the virus and everyone in hostels and backpackers were talking about it, but nobody really paid it heed. It was a problem in Europe, not a problem in rural Patagonia.”
After finishing the two-day hike, he arrived at a border post. He was told that Argentina had closed the border and there was no returning.
“We would have to wait another four days to get a ferry across the lake.”
When the ferry arrived two days later, he reached the other side but discovered that many guest houses and hostels had closed, and that town was being locked down.
“I booked myself a bus out of town and a flight out for the next morning.”
Five days later, when due to fly, he logged onto British Airways to discover that the first leg of the flight home was cancelled.
“But I got a new flight for the next day.”
Cancelled
Then Air France announced that the last leg from France to Dublin had been cancelled.
“I tried to get in touch with the airline again but couldn’t, so I made my way to airport.”
The airport was due to open at 8am but someone opened a window from inside the airport to those waiting and said airport was closed and no flights were leaving.
This is when Conor started to “freak out”, he says.
“The Embassy said get to Santiago as quick as possible.” And he did.
“Everything about it…it felt like a movie and I felt like was running away from the infection.”
Twenty-four hours doesn’t seem like a lot but when you’re in the middle of it all and trying to escape from it, 24 hours changes everything.
He slept in Santiago airport and managed to get a flight home the next day. He landed in Madrid, got a flight from Madrid to Heathrow and then on to Dublin.
Conor made it back into Kilkenny two nights ago and is now quarantined in a room in his family home.
“Nothing is usual at this point. I’m used of coming home at Christmas…I’ve lived in New York for last few years and usually when I come home there’s a children’s choir there singing to welcome us home but this time it was just an empty arrival terminal.”
