So as my faithful readers know, my parents are here in Cusco until Friday. They arrived this past Thursday, and still, halfway through their trip, do not have the one suitcase that they checked, which managed to get delayed in Bogota, Colombia. Being the wonderful people they are, they have handled this challenge masterfully and positively. But there's more to the story...
When I picked them up from the airport on Thursday, we spoke briefly with a man from TACA Airlines, who informed us that the bag would be delivered to my parents' hotel upon its arrival. However, my parents accidentally gave the man the wrong hotel address. When I spoke with him, I corrected the name of the hotel, which was only partially mistaken. My parents told the man they were staying at the Hotel Rumi Punku, when I had actually booked them at Waka Punku, which happens to be on the same street. Having corrected the error, we expected the bag to arrive within a maximum of 48 hours. We were hopeful for 24. And yet the bag did not come. And the number we'd been given to inquire after the bag went repeatedly unanswered. Poo.
After making it to Sunday night without successful retrieval of the bag, I decided that it would be wise to actually inquire at the airport in person on Monday morning, which arrived today. When I expressed my belief that this was the best course of action, my dad kept saying, "I don't think you need to go to the trouble of actually going to the airport. Why don't you call, or check the other hotel we wrote down by accident?" Yet I was adamant. Why would the airline have dropped off the bag to the other hotel when I'd corrected the name? And did I really trust myself to get to the bottom of things over the phone...in Spanish? Not really. So this morning, before the start of the workday, I hopped into a cab and asked to go to the airport.
It was an uneventful ride until the cab pulled up to the curb by the TACA Airlines site. At this point, I swung open (widely) the door of the cab. As I did so, an old, red pickup truck came driving by rather speedily and scraped its side on the outside of the taxi cab door. I was mortified. And the truck driver was NOT pleased. The cab driver wasn't all too happy either. I slowly stepped out of the car and surveyed the damage, along with the truck and cab drivers. Then the two drivers began to (loudly) argue over who was at fault. Obviously, both attributed lots of blame to me, as I had opened the door on the "wrong" side of the vehicle. Despite the fact that I was indeed guilty of this act, I attempted to reply(in my less-than-perfect Spanish) that I didn't consider myself totally at fault. The truck had been driving too fast and too close to the median, and when I looked at the cab driver's position on the road, he too had been driving far from the curb and close to the median. As I began to contemplate in my head how things were going to pan out, the voices of the cab driver and the truck driver grew louder and more irritable. The cab driver suggested that we all head to a nearby mechanic to assess the cost of the damage, and the truck driver kept retorting that he "didn't have time for that." I began to get the feeling that I was going to get stuck paying the brunt of the cost for something for which I wasn't entirely to blame.
As the drivers argued, a few airport officials walked over to see what had happened, and then a few more. As the number of Peruvian men in official gear began to seriously overpower me, I could feel tears welling up. I tried to speak rationally, and, after looking in my wallet, offered the truck driver the seventy soles I had on me to cover some of the damage costs. He snidely replied that this amount was not nearly enough, and that the repair of the scratch would cost more like 200 or 300 soles. As I looked into his irritated face and at all of the officially-garbed people surrounding me, I couldn't help it. The tears started flowing. It wasn't the money. Even 300 soles would have been only 100 dollars, which wouldn't do much of anything in the way of car repair in the US. No, what made me cry was the anger and the ruckus and the guilt all rolled up into one. Once the tears started, I couldn't quite stop them, and then one of the airport officials looked at me and realized that I was in distress. Apparently, this worked to my advantage, as lots of the men (grumpy truck driver excluded) began to feel sorry for the poor, ignorant "gringita" whom they had caused to cry. One of them said to the truck driver, "Just let her give you the seventy soles and be finished with it. She didn't do anything wrong on purpose" (which I didn't). He also very sweetly reached into his pocket and pulled out some tissues for me to wipe my eyes. And so they let me pay my 70 soles ($25) and be on my way.
Now let's consider: if I hadn't gone to the airport, these shenanigans would not have occurred. But I had to go to the airport, to get the bag, right? WRONG. Turns out that after crying my lil' eyes out AND waiting for a bunch of people to check into their TACA flights, the bag had been delivered (two days ago, I might add) to the wrong hotel--the one less than a block from where my parents were staying! So 77 soles, 50 centimos, and a gallon or so of tears later, I headed back to my apartment, and then to work. My parents will be delighted to receive their suitcase this evening, and I will never again get out on the "wrong" side of the taxi.
While I waited in line at the TACA counter and tried to wipe away the mascara running down my face, I thought about how lucky I am to be here in Peru, and alive, and enjoying a visit from my parents. No lost piece of luggage, and not even a scratched truck, can take that joy away from me. God is good!
P.S. For those of you who are judging me harshly for having emerged from the taxi on the wrong side, please take note of the following:
1. I occasionally lack the common sense possessed by the average human being.
2. I grew up in the suburbs, in Haddon Heights, a magical land free of taxis and, for the most part, angry people yelling.
3. I don't always listen to my roommate Laura, who is a veritable genius.
4. I got out on the side of the cab on which I was sitting. It was a matter of logical efficiency and convenience.
5. My PERUVIAN friend Lalo says that the safest place to sit in a taxi if you fear your impending death is directly behind the driver. Which is where I was sitting.
6. The driver should probably have told me, ignorant "gringita" that I am, that my chosen side was not the appropriate on which to disembark.
Please consider these fine excuses before making split judgments, dear friends. And thank you all for your continued prayers and love from afar. You are all beautiful! Oh. And Dad was right. Figures.
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