Chile quake not enough to stop duo

Travel-loving couple, Debbie Mann and Brian Power, are back on track after the Chile disaster.

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Chile earthquake and tsunami

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THE petrifying experience of being at the centre of an earthquake hasn’t sent Debbie Mann and Brian Power packing back to their Yeppoon sanctuary.

Instead, the couple are pressing on with their year-long travels through South Africa and surrounding areas.

However, each day since the quake, they still feel the earth move beneath them.

Yesterday Debbie said the tremors – aftershocks – were really hard to get used to and most of the locals in Santiago, Chile were still on edge.

It’s been just over two weeks since an 8.8 magnitude earthquake stuck Chile, killing hundreds.

Days after the disaster, Debbie and Brian attempted to leave Chile for Easter Island (Rapa Nui), but confusion and chaos was everywhere.

“There was so much confusion about which flights were going, with Lan Chile emails saying it was a no-go, the telephone lines jammed and three hour queues outside the office, that many people gave up,” Debbie said via email yesterday.

“Queuing paid off for us – we sat in the gutters at the airport with a few thousand others outside a makeshift tent terminal in total confusion joining random queues to God knows where.

“Finally after four hours we ended up in Papa Nui, on an empty plane – most passengers probably didn’t know the flight was even on.”

The Yeppoon teacher’s adventurous holiday brought back memories this week - of how they first met backpacking in Europe 30 years ago.

Debbie and her friend Barbara Stephenson set off after university with a one way ticket to London.

They travelled every country in Western Europe, got an illegal job washing dishes on the Costa de Sol in Spain, volunteered on a Kibbutz in Israel and were among the first to cross the Suez Canal.

“Arab countries were very, very hard and scary for a girl alone in those days, so I commandeered two beefy Canadians as bodyguards,” she said.

“The world was not Americanised then and if you wanted to get off the beaten track, you could go for months without speaking English.

“There were no global brands, or huge chain stores and supermarkets. And not a McDonald’s in sight. You just fumbled around in small grocery stores and often ate things you didn’t even recognise.”

Debbie eventually stopped in a share house and taught English in Europe, where she met Brian.

Brian had travelled from Asia to Europe and flew home later, while Debbie kept travelling through India, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Debbie said going home was tough after being so free, but in 1986 they married.

“We were made to feel so old starting a family at 30, but we went for broke and promptly had four beautiful daughters in four years.”

It’s now that the children are all grown up that Debbie and Brian felt the urge to don their backpacks again. Debbie said Santiago still had piles of debris, broken glass and rubble on footpaths but the city was “but to work as usual”.

Today they’re off to the Atacama Desert and into Bolivia.

They hope to see most countries in South America, as well as Mexico and Cuba before returning to Yeppoon to start working back as school teachers next year.

“We won’t have to prepare lessons then – we will have stories to captivate kids up till lunch time.”