Under the Ash Cloud

Stuck in Lisbon on the way back from the 2010 UN Crime Congress in Brazil, the offer of a lift into Northern Europe seemed to good to miss. At Salvador airport, I had run into my friend Tapio Lepii Seppala who ran the national legal policy research institute in Helsinki.  He had attached himself  to the official Finnish delegation (the Minister of Justice Tuija Brax , her husband , special adviser and  senior civil servants) for whom the Finnish embassy in Lisbon was plotting a 4000 km  road trip home, under the ash cloud.

To my slight surprise, Tapio followed up the next day with a text to say that the minibus was hired-  for 16,000 Euros. They would happily drop me off near Paris. There was a catch.   They had to wait a few hours for their former President Marti Ahtisaari who was flying in from Venezuela and needed a ride home too.  The Nobel peace prize winning international peacemaker had been lecturing, it emerged later, in Iceland when the volcano erupted – and together with his assistant and bodyguard had embarked on an ambitious trip to circumvent the ash via New York, Caracas and now Lisbon. After some uncertainties- the bus had no toilet – I was invited to meet them all outside the VIP lounge at Lisbon airport.

We set off at 4 pm, joined by a couple of other Finns (ex minister Suvi Anne Siimes and a finance ministry official) who had been corralled together by the embassy -and three drivers. Two of the party had been up all night with what was politely referred to as stomach flu but spirits were otherwise high.  The destination for the 22-seater coach was a ferry from Sweden. For me it was less clear. Would a warship in Santander, a Eurostar from Paris or a ferry from Calais offer the quickest way back? Or would a long-distance lorry offer a route home?

Going was slow. Despite the three drivers, we stopped at two hourly intervals for what were mentioned as legal breaks, where sweets and biscuits were bought, and cigarettes smoked. Ahtisaari bought Toblerones to share, and one or two cans of beer were consumed. Long journey conversations followed. Some serious -the justice minister was concerned she would miss Thursday’s discussion of how many nuclear power stations were to be built. Some curious -what is the difference between dinner and supper in English and Finnish? Why are windmill wings shaped as they are? Who would win the forthcoming UK election?

As we meandered into Spain, immediately losing an hour, it emerged to my surprise we would be stopping for the night. Rooms had been booked at an empty conference centre near Valladolid where we arrived at half past midnight. Fortified with a beer at a local bar (but declining the whole crab tapas on offer), we took five hours rest before a 7 a.m. breakfast and 7.30 start. I was too late for HMS Albion, so Paris beckoned.

Climbing through the Pyrenees brought dozing, reading and political conversation worthy of the global elite I had unwittingly joined – what to do about Polisario and the Western Sahara - why Cyril Ramaphosa would have made a good South African President, Tony Blair’s efforts in Northern Ireland. Talk was punctuated with constantly changing ash updates from experts in Helsinki. The Finnish Prime minister called to check on progress. The journey was creating interest in the media.  After a 12-euro prix fixe lunch at possibly the worst restaurant in France, a team photo winged its way into a Helsinki evening paper.

As we headed through the Basque country to the vineyards of Bordeaux, my thoughts turned to where I would get off. We joked about being dumped in a lay-by on the Paris peripherique with the inevitable media questions about what happened to the mystery man in the press photo.  

The drivers and the bodyguard -who seemed in charge of the route - were not sure which way round Paris they would be going and I could not engage them in a serious discussion about my disembarkation. They pored over a map but only to identify a restaurant stop for the evening. We eventually sat down at the Entrecote in Tours where Ahtisaari hosted an excellent diner. Snails, frogs, raw beef and calvados were consumed, stomach flu notwithstanding. I took the opportunity between courses to establish that there was a nearby hotel and a train service to Paris, albeit strike affected of course. This I recognised was the last supper -or was it dinner?

We said our goodbyes and the bus headed off into the night to Germany, Denmark, Sweden- two more days and nights of driving. As I settled to a few hours sleep a text arrived.  All UK airports open. I might well have been better off biding my time in Lisbon.  But despite the continuing discomforts of a 12-hour train and ferry trip to London via Paris, Calais and Dover, I would not have missed the camaraderie of two days in the bus with Finland’s elite.