My first brush with the killer virus came in a snowbound luxury bolt hole above Courchevel in January, 2020. I was sharing it with five Chinese, one of them seriously twitchy. She returned from the doctor with a shake of the head. Not Covid? What was Covid? Its spectre had barely touched my radar…

 

Two months later, American riders were queuing for tests in Calafate, the launch point for the first Gaucho Derby in southern Patagonia. More shaken heads, but a higher profile creeping closer. When I squeezed into Heathrow days before lockdown, the killer was rampant, my adventure travel career a fragment of history. By the time resurrection was technically possible, titles and contacts had failed. Good though it had been, it was time to move on…

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