We’ve been in Portugal for 2 days now, and if all had gone well tomorrow morning would have been the start of our Camino. Maybe I should back up a bit. Thursday morning we checked in at San Diego international with no problems and we’re promised by the ticketing agent that our bags were all set for transfers all the way through to Porto, but to tell them in Boston that we had bags. With that in mind we waited for the flight, then settled in on the plane for attempted napping and recharging on the way to Boston. We weren’t sitting in the same row, but both had the middle seat one in front of the other. Imagine my delight when a hand suddenly waved into view holding those delicious airplane cookies from the seat in front of mine. After sitting between two people I didn’t know for several hours, and none of us speaking a word the flight attendant came around with applications for the airline credit card and the woman in the aisle said her husband wanted one. I was stunned when she reached over me and handed it wordlessly yo the man in the window seat who took it and I realized they weren’t strangers at all, but I got stuck between two silent married people who were determined to take up all available arm rest real estate.
When we got to Boston we stopped for dinner, did several laps of the terminal, and had time to buy the most expensive shortest phone cable available before the gate agent showed up. We checked in and asked about our bags and she reassured us that not only did they know we had bags, but that she could see they had been registered and were being put into the plane. This was great news and we waited out the time until our flight (which was delayed an hour) was ready to board. This flight we sat together and laughed as we went through more plans for arrival and tried to make a go of eating the airplane food, then we napped a little and arrived in Azores for a quick stop.
Even ahead of schedule we were still running late, so we rushed through customs to get to the next security point. I asked the woman directing the line about our flight after she ushered another Porto passenger past the line and she said “too late, gone. You need new ticket” and we prepared ourselves to take the next flight as we waited to clear security. As soon as my stuff was through the conveyor I heart a man shouting “Porto?” And I looked at him and said yes. He walked up to me, pointed to my bin of loose items, pointed to me, and said “run”. I tried to shove my stuff into my tiny bag, but he said “no, we run now” and shoved them into my hands as he turned and sprinted away. I chased after him as fast as I could clutching my bag, my liquids, my camera, and my sanity. My flip flops smacked as I rushed to keep up not moving nearly as fast as he wanted. Carrie was ahead of me but behind him, and he turned to shout to us “now is time to run, you run now!” And radioed ahead again. Finally we reached the gate, my chest burned, my hair was disheveled, and my arms were full of things I didn’t remember picking up. I must have looked like the mother of a toddler as I stepped up to the gate agent gasping for breath and trying to find my passport in all of it. We got into the plane and as soon as we were buckled Carrie looked at me while I coughed from the exertion and said “I have a feeling our bags didn’t make it, I can just tell.” But the 30 uneventful minutes of flight made that thought seem casual as we gladly took the last hour of 20 for this trip. Disembarking we headed down to baggage claim and wondered if we would be on the regular carousel or with oversized and odd luggage. The answer was neither. Carries prediction was true, but we were optimistic that given our sprint (my hobbling scuttle) through the Lisbon airport didn’t give or backpacks enough time to reach us.
We went into the lost and found office and started the process of filing a claim with a very surly man who was situated beneath a sign that said “it’s ok to smile and cheer here” and we smiled at him while he sighed heavily and hinted that Boston was the real culprit here. After Carrie had the presence of mind to ask questions about the usual delayed baggage delivery system and how long until the next flight we decided to sit down and wait for the carousel to light up again in the event that our bags were right behind us. We were pretty sure we had this case solved. We were wrong. We went back into lost and found and a different man told us that not only were our bags not in Porto, they weren’t in Lisbon. In fact, there was no record of them anywhere. Disheartened we left the office to wait for Jo’l with embarrassing signs made out of hotel confirmation paper.
From there it’s been more calls, online checks, and social media messages. These bags aren’t anywhere that anyone can find them. Nobody knows what happened to them after we checked them in at San Diego and nobody seems inclined to help beyond “call later there’s nothing now.”
The thing is, everything required for this pilgrimage is in those bags. We’ve been waging clothes in the bathtub at the hotel (this isn’t want I thought my first 4 star hotel experience would look like) and wearing them damp since we arrived. This is everything that we currently have available to us 6,500 miles from home with an entire pilgrimage in front of us.
With nothing from the airline we have to start thinking about how to continue here. We can’t abandon this, we’ve worked too hard and come too far. The plan right now is this: get the barest essentials we can. One more set of walking clothes, a rain jacket, a backpack, shoes. Leave from here with the name of our first stop registered with the baggage handlers and pray.
That’s all we’ve got right now, and we’re hopping against hope that we don’t have to roll out plan B, but it’s looking more likely every time I wash my underwear in the sink.
I had to buy the cheapest most basic walking shoes because Porto is all cobblestone hills and flip flops were working on some nice blisters, so I leave you with my new fashion statement.
