Caribbean Flight - Torture and Uncertainty

Sleep deprivation is an interrogation / torture technique used by some nations in order to extract information from a suspect. The idea is to keep the lights on and not let the suspect sleep until they are so fed up and tired that they’ll say and do anything just to be able to get some shut eye.

I experienced this sort of torture on my overnight flight to a certain unnamed Caribbean island (You'll find out on Thursday where I am). The cabin crew kept the lights on the entire flight, except for 30 minutes between 1:30am and 2am. What made things even more exciting was the two guys hovering around me drinking beer, making noise while everyone else is trying to sleep and of course hitting on the mother of two sitting beside me.

What would torture be without some uncertainty thrown in there? Take my second flight of the day, I could fit my finger in the window covering and the interior wasn’t secure to the exterior shell. When we hit a bit of turbulence, my seat and the wall would move. Could it break and whisk me out the window? I dunno? But it was an exciting 30 minutes.

Although not extreme torture, it’s still annoying. And I’m putting myself through this for you, my loyal reader. Because you’ll see a real sanitized version of what I’ll be experiencing over the next few days. Imagine seeing an entire country in 4 days?

Anyway enough of my moaning and groaning, the reality is that sometimes the ends justifies the means. After spending 12 hours in airports, losing my first class seat to a coach seat near the bathroom (honeymooning couple were seperated), a 3 hour layover, beer drinking morons, bright lights, rickety planes AND no sleep for 24 hours, I was just hoping that this was all worthwhile.

And it is.

Below is the view out my window. It’s the rainy season here, so there are some rain clouds in the distance, with the sun beaming down, it’s hot. Really hot. And there’s not a beer drinking redneck in sight.



I can’t wait till 14 hrs from now, when I’ll get a chance to sleep.

The things I do for you…