This is so far a journey of interesting twists and turns. I just arrived in Medellin last night, late, from Mexico City. Quite a frustrating flight altogether. From my hotel in Mexico City, I took a cab to the airport yesterday, believing that if I left at 3:00 I should make it for my flight at 6:45 with plenty of time for something to eat in the airport. It was raining hard that afternoon, and this was making traffic difficult. My cab driver arrived twenty minutes late. And we spent more than an hour and a half in a traffic jam on a route that should have taken just over thirty minutes. Fortunately we got on well and had a really great conversation in Spanish. He is twenty-eight, married with two children, ages eight and two his wife stays at home to look after the kids so it appears that he is the sole breadwinner.
I thought I was going to miss my flight, but there was already a huge line up that took another hour till I could check in, then had less than ten minutes to make it to my flight. Fortunately, take-off was delayed, so there was still plenty of time. The flight was uneventful, and I arrived in Medellin at just past 11:30. Then I waited at the baggage claim. Where I waited...and waited...and waited.....
All those lovely suitcases, backpacks, sports bags, and someone to claim each one of them as they headed off into the rainy Medellín night to get on with the rest of their lives. And I stood, waiting, and waiting...
Soon there were no suitcases, backpacks or sports bags left, and the conveyer belt ground to a halt, as empty and desolate as a Martian landscape.
I made some inquiries. It turned out that my luggage (one large sports bag), was detained in Mexico for examination. I thought at first that it must have been the bomb that I was trying to smuggle onboard, or maybe it was the big bag of heroin. Perhaps they didn't like the idea of a live hand grenade sitting oh so quietly in the hold of a passenger plane almost forty thousand feet in the air.
Of course, I wasn't carrying any of those items, and only the most innocent things, such as clothing, toiletries, a couple of mugs I was bringing my host as a gift, an extra pair of shoes. and nothing else, really. Fortunately I had in my carry on luggage a few extra changes of socks and underwear, all the money I have brought with me, things to read, my laptop, and art supplies. So it isn't a total loss.
To further complicate things, Alonso, who I am staying with, was waiting for me in the parking lot, and, as many of you already know, I do not have a cell phone, so I wasn't able to call him (and even with such inconveniences, I still refuse to get a smartphone because I do not want to enslave myself to big tech.)
Fortunately, the man helping me with my baggage claim phoned him for me a couple times to let him know what was happening. I was of course really upset, and was forgetting a lot of my Spanish, sometimes complicating communications.
Then, I couldn't find Alonso, and it was raining furiously, so I wandered all over the place. He was nowhere in sight.
I discovered a room with an open door, and someone inside. I went in. It was a security guard, and he phoned Alonso for me, then showed me exactly where I should go to meet him. So, we found each other, then stopped in an all night supermarket where I could buy a toothbrush.
My luggage should be delivered here to the apartment some time today. I am severely underslept from the stress. But Alonso is treating me like royalty. He has given me his bedroom, and he is sleeping in another part of the apartment.
This morning we went out to the mall to do some grocery shopping, then I waited for him for an hour at a table in the mall, doing art, while he was in the gym. Now I'm back in the apartment and my host has gone off to work.
Its going to be okay...
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