The Ticking Bomb

Twenty-five years ago the word "terrorist" was not heard of. Well, we never heard of it and so one presumes there was no terrorism. Wars were in far-away places, we only watched these scary things on TV, ensconced in our cozy homes. We did know about bombs, however, these were used by people like the I.R.A in Ireland and the Basks in Spain. The Basks are a mountain-people who descended these same mountains now and then to place a bomb somewhere in Spain, just to make their point and disappear again in the healthy mountain-air, to give their children a good life-style, envied by many.

At the time we lived in Europe and around holiday-time Spain was the obvious choice. It is warm there, the Spanish people are welcoming and the hotels beautiful, but for a small price. This year one of the travel-brochures advertised Marbella. This the playground for the rich and famous. Not that we are anything of the sort, but we liked to pretend we were and tell our friends and family later on we'd seen so and so famous person. So off we went to (what we thought) was Mabella. As the plane landed we couldn't contain our joy: the big yachts in the marina, Porches everywhere. The travel-rep was waiting by the bus. As the bus drove further and further away from the yachts, palace-like hotels and famous people, we realized our stories were not going to be. The bus ended up on a gravel-road and stopped at an old hacienda. It didn't matter, we were there and our holiday started. We had a good time, and made many friends in these two weeks.Until we were picked up by the bus again....

The return trip to the airport went smoothly, and we all unloaded our suitcases. Inside the airport building we zoomed through Customs and we thought we were on our way. After seeing our luggage disappearing inside "our" plane we went to the appropriate gate and filed into this big bird. After sitting inside the plane for an hour, without it taking off, we realized there was something going on. The air-condition was off as well, and it was at least 30 degrees inside.Official looking air-port personnel was looking around nervously., talking in Spanish. It became clear, we had to leave the plane.By this time we were pretty keen to leave the plane; inside it was an oven. So back inside the air-conditioned building. The building was a simple affair; no cafeteria, no restaurant, just a coffee-machine, which, by close inspection also produced cocoa and soup. But there was no food. We were stuck on a foreign airport at 5 o'clock in the afternoon without food.None of us spoke Spanish and the travel-rep, who did speak Spanish, had long disappeared. After 2 hours, without any explanation, we were herded back into the plane. "It was something mechanical" we said to each other "Good that they check the planes to carefully". But it didn't go in the air again, we stayed on the ground. Again a display of officials jabbering in Spanish but no take-off. We were herded back into the building. From there we saw our luggage taken out of the plane, put on the tarmac run-way. We were mystified; what would be the reason for that? By this time it became dark outside, it was around 7 or 8 pm. Perhaps they ordered a better plane for us? But where was it? And still no food.

At this time we decided to turn the whole thing into a kind of party. Some people had bought booze duty-free and we made Cuba-Libras (Coca-cola and rum) in the plastic cups from the coffee-machine. Others had been clever enough to bring some food and this was shared around. It was during this jolly time that the officials decided we had to go back in the same plane again. The suitcases, which had been in the same place for hours, were returned to the plane, and we buckled in. After a while it became clear that this process of going-not going was repeated again. When we arrived back at the building, I admit we were a bit jolly, due to empty stomachs and too many Cuba-Libras. But someone demanded an explanation this time. It was around midnight now and we were tired. Tomorrow was a Monday and some had to be at work at 8.

"There was something ticking in the plane, it was probably a bomb" was what we heard. We became sober immediately. A bomb? Yes, there was definitely a ticking heard, but they couldn't find it. It could be in the luggage, it could be inside the plane. One thing stood out: we were not going anywhere until the bomb was found!

"Our" plane became a bee-hive of activity. The Military was called in, soldiers with machine-guns were crawling over our luggage and inside the plane. It was cordoned off effectively, as only the military can do that. German Shepherds sniffed, shouts were heard. Around 2 am it became clear: the bomb was found. We sighed with relief. But who had planted it, who wanted us dead? The explanation came soon.

An airport-official explained there had been no bomb at all; it was a ticking alarm-clock, left in the luggage-compartment.This was in a small box and had probably flown all over the world. The Military had blown it to pieces somewhere on the tarmac and we were safe. We finally flew home.But we won't ever take an alarm-clock with us when we travel.