Photo: @tongadiaries
It was the longest weekend trip ever.
Zoe Stephens flew to Tonga for what was supposed to be a quick getaway in March 2020 but was unable to leave the country until this week because of COVID-19 restrictions. Those same restrictions have largely kept the Polynesian countrysafe from the virus during the pandemic.
“Mask and hazmats. It’s all finally hitting me. 1.5 years in Tonga; 1.5 years without covid,” she wrote onInstagramearly Wednesday morning. “Now to enter a pandemic for the first time.”
According toForbes, Stephens — originally from the United Kingdom — had spent much of the last year and a half earning an online master’s degree in international communications, and waiting for the country to allow international flights again. And while Tonga is lush with tropical rainforests and beaches, Stephens said knowing she couldn’t leave somewhat marred the experience.
“Certainly, the idea of being stuck in paradise is certainly appealing — but I think in reality, no one wants to be ‘stuck’ anywhere,” the 27-year-old toldForbes. “You could put someone in their favorite place in the world and as long as they are ‘stuck’ there, I don’t think they’d enjoy it. No one likes to be limited and told they can’t do something, and I think that takes away a lot of the ‘paradise’ charm.”
@tongadiaries
Before visiting Tonga, Stephens had been living in China for more than two years, where she worked as a tour guide. As COVID-19 began to spread, Stephens was outside of the country and decided to fly to Tonga to avoid having to quarantine when returning to China, she toldCNN. That’s when Tongo went into lockdown.
“It took about a week before flights stopped coming in completely,” she told the outlet. “We had a three-week lockdown, which was really, really intense. You could only leave your home once a week to go and get groceries and you had your car registration and name taken down.”
“Everything in the entire country was closed. Shops, restaurants, everything apart from the odd one or two shops,” she added.
With her flight out of the country, she’ll be able to return to her life — though it will look dramatically different from when she left in March 2020.
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Stephens documented her journey on her Instagram page@TongaDiaries, where she announced she would be writing a book about the adventure.
“It’s over - the longest weekend of my life turned into 1 year, 5 months, and 13 days. Probably the quickest 531 days of my life,” she said on Wednesday before flying to London. “Don’t go anywhere; I may have left, but I still have the story to tell.”
source: people.com
