We Came, We Saw, We Left

by Charles Wheelan

  “Adults use sunscreen,” Leah replied.

  “And insect repellent,” I piled on.

  “That’s true,” Sophie said. We waited for some quibble or rejoinder, but there was none. She admitted that it had been foolish not to use sunscreen on the trek. “I thought that if I didn’t use bug spray at Machu Picchu and it worked out okay, then it would make up for the sunscreen,” she explained. The candor was refreshing, even if the logic was horrifying.

  Sophie agreed to do more VLACS work. We agreed to nag less and evaluate her on the results. Everybody would be happy if she got her work done without us being involved. The first task, a trial of sorts, would be for Sophie to e-mail a thank-you note to my brother-in-law and sisterin-law for looking after her in Hanover for two months. We would not remind her; she would just get it done by a specified time. This would be a small step forward—like one of those confidence-building measures that the Israelis and Palestinians periodically agree to.

  Sophie spent the subsequent twenty-four hours texting, posting on Facebook, watching Netflix—everything but sending the thankyou note, which would have taken between two and four minutes. The details of the subsequent screaming match are uninteresting, except that it culminated in the letter Sophie handed me in the waiting area of the Quito airport.

  It began: “To Whom It May Concern (although I’m not sure if that includes you).” The note included several paragraphs on being the unappreciated child. The pièce de résistance was a declaration: “You can try to control my whole life all you want, but you surely can’t make me eat or speak, although the more I think about it the more I realize you may not be above force-feeding me.” (For the record, we did not force-feed her.) Then there was the final line: “Sorry for being harsh, but you needed to hear the truth.” The irony, of course, is that the protest letter took about twenty times as long to write as the thank-you note would have.

  When CJ learned about Sophie’s civil disobedience, he began comparing her to Mahatma Gandhi, who had also refused to speak or eat as a form of protest. As Sophie sulked in the corner of the boarding gate for our flight to the Galapagos, CJ began yelling, “Viva Mahatma! Viva Mahatma!” This was unhelpful, though I was impressed with his historical fluency. I sat next to Sophie on the plane and wrote a six-page response to her letter. We were both crying by the time letters had been exchanged. Leah kept looking across the aisle, trying to figure out what was going on.

  We had hit bottom with Sophie, in terms of both the homeschooling and the broader maturity issues. The good thing about hitting bottom is that things tend to get better. Sophie recognized that she needed deadlines from us to get her work done. We agreed not to harass her about her work if she hit those deadlines. And we all recognized that the deadlines needed to be more specific than most business contracts. Gone were phrases like “significant progress in pre-calc”—replaced with clauses such as “two assignments, uploaded to the portal in a format accessible to the teacher by midnight, local time as determined by Dad’s iPhone.” I kept a small notebook in my back pocket in which we recorded the details of each agreement. At one point, we considered videotaping our conversations.

  The combination of crystal-clear agreements and firm deadlines, with the phone to be confiscated for missing them, turned out to work surprisingly well. There were several occasions on which Sophie’s recollections of our agreements were more accurate than ours. I would open the notebook like a lawyer consulting a statute and say, “She’s right.” Sophie began speaking to us again. Leah persuaded her that using selfstarvation as a weapon was a scary and unhealthy thing. CJ continued to yell, “Viva Mahatma!” whenever he felt the urge to annoy Sophie.

  We took a break from early mornings and grueling bus rides and the tight budget. My brother Pete and his wife have two boys close in age to Sophie and CJ. When Leah and I began planning our adventure, Pete proposed meeting us with his family in the Galapagos for Thanksgiving. At the appointed time, my brother and his family’s taxi pulled into the parking lot of a tortoise reserve. As when we reunited with Katrina in Chile, there was something exciting about picking a spot on the map—an arbitrary place, previously unknown—and having everyone show up as planned.

  Our rental house was on an outlying island accessible only by ferry. As we waited to board the boat, seals lounged beneath the benches on the dock. Huge lizards crawled across nearby rocks. CJ and his cousins spotted a small shark swimming in the shallow water. CJ, who had been talking incessantly about sharks (“misunderstood creatures”), began running up and down the dock, shrieking in excitement: “Shark! Shark! Shark!”

  “He’s so happy,” Leah said admiringly.

  “What if he pees on himself?” I replied.

  The ferry deposited us on Isabela Island, a beautiful but remote place with one town and no paved roads. The house we rented had a hammock on the back deck; the beach and the ocean were beyond that. We did not have to go looking for nature; it found us: colorful lizards lounging on rocks; sea lions frolicking in the harbor; exotic birds hunting in the water and sand. I took a short walk along a wooded trail and stumbled upon an estuary full of bright pink flamingos.

  We snorkeled in the shallow, clear water. The world underwater was as exciting and diverse as what we were seeing on land: stingrays, a bright blue starfish, a moray eel, and giant sea turtles that drifted so close we could see the algae on their shells swaying gently in the current. A small shark darted past in the distance, prompting a frisson of excitement.

  The next day a guide took us to a murky canal just offshore, where we dropped into the water and began floating with masks and snorkels along the warm channel. The guide told us that the reef sharks are most often found in caves or under large rocks. He proposed a plan: I would dive down to the bottom of the canal, about six feet, and peer into a cave. Since the human body is naturally buoyant, he would assist me by putting his foot on my back when I reached the bottom so I could look into the cave without popping up to the surface.

  I took a big breath and dived down. Per our agreement, the guide put his foot on my back, holding me against the bottom of the canal. I looked under the gap in the rocks. At first I saw nothing. My eyes slowly adjusted, at which point I saw two eyes looking back at me. As my brain caught up, I realized the eyes belonged to the long body of a reef shark. These sharks are harmless creatures if not disturbed. Still, the human brain is wired to react to the unique shape of a shark, particularly a large one. Also, I was pinned to the bottom with someone’s foot on my back, which is a curious sensation under any circumstances but particularly alarming when one is staring at a shark. I calmed myself and spent ten seconds admiring the beautiful creature in its natural environment. Like so much in life, the shark felt less scary up close than it had from afar.

  We continued snorkeling through the shallow, murky channel. Enormous sea turtles swam under and around us. Some had small transmitters attached to their shells, presumably to monitor their movement and health. I spotted another long shark lounging on the bottom. And then, as my brain made sense of the contours on the muddy bottom, I realized there were multiple sharks lying next to one another: more than I could count, all six or eight feet long. Some of the sharks began swimming around; at one point, I had to abruptly change course to avoid drifting into one.

  Isabela Island was small enough that we could turn the cousins loose: to swim on the beach; to snorkel in the harbor; to go out for pizza together at night. CJ had a blast with his boy cousins. Sophie had fun, too. There was a single bakery down the street that produced fresh banana bread every afternoon around three o’clock. I was the first to discover this treat; every slice I brought home was immediately consumed by hungry teens. The next day I bought more; again, there was nothing left but crumbs. By the end of our stay, we became more proactive: one family member was dispatched to the shop around two forty-five to buy every loaf the proprietress produced. It was like a cross between American tourists and a bank robbery: one of us waving U.S. dollars and
declaring, “We want it all. Every loaf.”

  We celebrated Thanksgiving at an outdoor seafood restaurant. My parents were delighted that two branches of the family were together in this special place; every time we spoke to them they offered us more money to subsidize our meals and adventures. I may be fifty years old, but a free meal from my parents is still a free meal. The Galapagos turned out to be a remarkable travel destination, a successful family reunion, and a relaxing and semi-luxurious break from our backpacking regime.

  Team Wheelan was now firing on every travel cylinder except the homeschooling one. Sophie missed her first VLACS deadline, prompting two and a half hours of arguing, crying, and, eventually, a confiscated phone. She admitted that she had trouble completing work that she did not care about. That was progress. She agreed to do an hour of work each morning before doing anything else (namely getting on her phone, which had been returned). She and Leah would work together on math. The real breakthrough, however, came when Sophie began working on something she did care about: writing. She did a long Facebook post from the Galapagos that reminded me of her writing talent. She can write quickly, almost effortlessly, and has a great ear for teen dialogue. On the first leg of the flight to New Zealand, she began writing a novel; she had several chapters done by the time we reached our layover in Santiago. The writing put her in a good mood, as it does for me. Now two of us were writing novels, though Sophie’s was arguably more practical. Her high school offers an opportunity for seniors to do an independent project that can substitute for class credit. Sophie proposed that the novel would be her independent project. Oh, the irony: the child doing her best to fail junior year was looking ahead excitedly to doing independent work senior year.

  We had a long time to kill in the Santiago airport—hours and hours. We found a Johnny Rockets restaurant and lingered over the meal. We were all in good moods. The conversation wandered: movies; then sex; then sex in movies. “I got my first erection while watching Bad Teacher!” CJ blurted out. We laughed; the discussion moved on. As we were walking to the gate, though, Katrina pulled me aside. “Dad, is he normal?” she asked earnestly. “I’m really worried about him.”

  “Which part: the sexual behavior, or his willingness to talk about it?” I asked.

  “Both,” she said.

  “The sexual behavior is normal. His eagerness to talk about it—less so,” I said. “But he does talk a lot about everything.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s true,” Katrina agreed.

  “He’ll be fine,” I assured her.

  With that, we bade farewell to South America. We boarded a 787 Dreamliner for the overnight flight to Auckland, New Zealand—the flight I had booked with trepidation on the screened porch many months earlier. We were in a good place as a family as we prepared to cross the Pacific Ocean, with one modest exception. Katrina had a dime-sized sore on the top of her left foot. The wound was bizarrely symmetrical—a perfect circle. We had originally assumed it was the remnant of a blister from the Machu Picchu trek, but the sore did not appear to be healing. If anything, it was getting bigger.

  Chapter 10

  The Left Side of the Road

  I had been keeping a tally in the back of my journal:

  Countries: 8

  Bus trips: 28

  Flights: 13

  Boat rides: 6

  Jeep rides: 7

  Horse rides: 2

  Incidents of motion sickness: 7

  Search parties looking for us: 2

  Family meltdowns: 5

  Books read (by me): 25

  OUR PLAN FOR NEW ZEALAND was a long road trip, steadily south. When Leah and I visited New Zealand in 1988, we landed in Auckland on the North Island. Everyone we encountered, tourists and locals alike, told us to make sure we left enough time to explore the South Island. We did not. We became absorbed by the bucolic North Island and never made it to the most scenic spots in the south.

  This time we resolved not to make that mistake. Katrina and I pulled out a map of New Zealand and began planning a route to the southern tip of the South Island. Then we read about Stewart Island, just to the south of the South Island, a place where kiwis can still be spotted in the wild. “What about Ulva Island?” I asked, pointing to a tiny speck on the map near Stewart Island.

  “We can make it to Ulva Island,” Katrina declared.

  The plan was hatched. We would make it to the island to the east of the island to the south of the South Island.

  Our road trip began in Auckland around six in the morning, after we had flown overnight from South America. We picked up our rental car and headed out of the airport—on the left side of the road. Leah had so little interest in driving that we did not put her on the rental agreement. Her job was to yell loudly from the passenger seat whenever I instinctively ended up on the right side of the road, which was the wrong side of the road.

  Our first destination was the central post office. In particular, we needed to find the poste restante window. Poste restante is a holdover from the days when anyone without a fixed address could have mail held for them at a post office. Only a few post offices in the world still offer the service. Fewer still accept packages, but the central post office in Auckland was one of them. I had mailed a pouch of books there before leaving Hanover. Back then, it was just a meaningless address on the other side of the world. As I handed the pouch to the clerk in the Hanover post office, I had wondered: Would we make it that far?

  In downtown Auckland, we found the main post office and then the poste restante window. I presented my driver’s license and a friendly woman retrieved the parcel. I was happy to have new books; I was even more excited that the poste restante experiment had worked and that we had made it far enough to pick them up. In theory, there would be more books waiting for me in Tasmania and Mumbai.

  New Zealand felt familiar, especially the prices. On that first day, we exceeded our food budget before dinner. The rental car would have to be folded into the budget, too. Every accommodation in Auckland was too expensive, even the hostels. We drove about an hour and a half to the smaller city of Hamilton, where we rented a small Airbnb apartment adjacent to a miniature golf course and driving range. Driving on the left side of the road was exhausting. We got lost on the way, making the drive even longer. Also, the last time any of us had slept in a bed was in Quito, about thirty-six hours earlier. I de-stressed by paying eight dollars to hit a bucket of golf balls at the driving range, which was really just an open field with sheep grazing on it. (No sheep were harmed.) Still, we were not able to escape Complete Family Meltdown #4.*

  The blowup happened in the parking lot of a grocery store. Katrina, Sophie, and CJ were sitting in the backseat of our rental car while Leah and I were inside buying provisions. Having them in a confined space after traveling for thirty-six hours was like chain-smoking in a fireworks factory. A dispute arose when someone impinged on someone else’s space—typical five-year-old stuff. In the heat of the argument, CJ yelled at Sophie, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed!”† Katrina began laughing hysterically, causing Sophie to declare that she was being ganged up on. By the time Leah and I returned to the car with groceries, the pushing and shoving had morphed into a tearful discussion of pent-up grievances.

  There was a volatile combination of personalities squeezed in the backseat. CJ tends to provoke, sometimes intentionally but often not. Regardless of how a dispute begins, however, he is unable to bring it to resolution without proving himself right. Sophie gets stubborn and belligerent when she is angry, escalating the situation. Katrina is quiet and withdrawn, hiding her annoyance until the dam bursts, at which point there is a cascade of emotions. All three of them are terrible at apologizing.

  From the front seat, Leah led the de-escalation. She asked Katrina and CJ, “How do you think Sophie felt when you were laughing at her?”

  Katrina said, “Sophie, I’m sorry that you’re so sensitive.”

  “Try
again,” Leah demanded.

  Katrina doubled down. “Sophie, I’m sorry you misunderstood—”

  “Nope,” Leah said.

  “I’m sorry we laughed at you,” Katrina said earnestly.

  “Okay, good,” Leah said. “Now CJ.”

  “Sorry, Sophie,” CJ complied.

  “Thank you. Now we’re all okay?” Leah asked.

  There were nods of agreement from the backseat. I started the car and began backing out of the parking spot, at which point CJ said, “But Sophie was in my space.”

  “Oh my god!” Leah screamed. The process began anew.

  We celebrated the eventual reconciliation with a round of miniature golf, which came free with our Airbnb. The whole trip was a process of family self-discovery, but in this moment we learned that Katrina is an unbelievably bad miniature golf player—worse than anything I ever thought possible. She began the round by taking a near-full swing with the putter, sending the ball far off the course. Even after we urged her to putt rather than swing, she continued to hit the ball into the surrounding bushes and gravel. Because Katrina is also stubborn, she then tried to hit the ball back onto the course, which usually involved sending it farther into the New Zealand countryside. Soon she was far enough away from the course, still flailing away with the putter, that other mini-golfers began to stop and watch. “Just don’t hurt anyone,” I said loudly, trying to project so that she could hear me from the other side of the parking lot. The levity helped our collective mood, as did sleep.

  We drove south to Hobbiton, the film location for The Hobbit and other Lord of the Rings films. Hobbiton epitomizes both the bucolic beauty of the North Island and the filmmaking genius of Peter Jackson, the New Zealander who directed the Lord of the Rings trilogy. My economist brain was impressed by how a film location deliberately chosen for its remoteness had been turned into a huge, ongoing tourist attraction. Also, what’s not to love about an entire village built for hobbits? In the afternoon, we continued south to Rotorua, a city famous for its hot springs and outdoor activities. The weather was sunny and warm and we had many hours of daylight as the first day of summer in the southern hemisphere drew nearer. We rented a cozy basement in a suburban home and parked our rental SUV in the driveway. Our basement apartment had a galley kitchen and a microwave, and we could drive to a nearby supermarket. Yet even when we tried to survive on bread, cheese, and fruit we consistently spent more than our daily food budget. Restaurants were worse. On the other hand, the outdoor activities were relatively cheap. We lounged for a day in the outdoor hot springs. Leah, Katrina, and I took a peaceful hike on a forested trail, admiring wildflowers and scenic views of Lake Rotorua along the way.