Solving the Bag Mystery and Trying to Get It

Wednesday and Thursday, Aug. 16-17, 2017--Cartagena, Colombia

Where I am staying is a very good place for two reasons:  1) It is nice (Hotel Plaza de Getsemani, rated 4th best B and B in Cartagena and really a small boutique hotel) except for one problem in my room:  I booked a room with a king size bed, and they made it by putting two twin beds together with the gap going from side to side and covered with king-size sheets.  At first, I really had problems with that slit right about hip level.  But I angled myself and everything was okay.  Of course, I could have just slept completely sideways, but the cover sheet was tucked in at the bottom and would have required more effort to adjust than was worth it.  2) The owner has been a great ally in working to get my bag to me.

Two friends at the airport in San Antonio provided great assistance in the morning trying to track my bag in addition to the hotel owner working here in Cartagena.  But their work mainly proved that I was probably right about the problem.  In the afternoon, I started calling:

1.  Copa Airlines (US office, not the local airport) had concluded that the tag was probably ripped off my bag and said they were searching for it that way.  Well, there were two problems with that:  A) The only description they had was a black bag.  No other details I had given--the purple string on it, the size, the brand, etc.-- had been put into their computer, so it would have been a hopeless search.  B)  The tag had NOT been ripped off my bag.

2.  United thought the bag was somewhere.  They seemed to be a bit confused thinking maybe I had missed my flight in Houston.  On my second call to them, I tried to explain what I thought happened--that the man checking me in might have put the sticker from one of the two bag check strips printed out on my boarding pass and the long strip from the other one on my bag.  They didn't seem to comprehend what I was saying, so I went through a long description of how to identify my bag.  Finally, I just asked:  "My bag number attached to my boarding pass was ______1.  Is it possible for you to check bag numbers ______0 and ______2?"  She immediately said, "Here's your bag, it's _____0!  With that said, she told me it had been in Houston and was going to be put on the plane to Panama City in the late afternoon and then on the plane to Cartagena last night.

Both the owner and I made calls--me to Copa in the US and him to the airport.  We both told them that the bag number on the missing baggage claim was wrong and that the last number should be switched to a 0 and that the bag should arrive on the flight from Panama City.  It was a second hand message, however to the local airport from the hotel owner, because the people dealing with bags were not there and would not arrive until 22:00--45 minutes before the plane was to arrive.

I'll return to the story of the bag later.  In the meantime...

During the morning hours of Wednesday, I knew they would be searching but that there would be no details related to the bag yet, so I went out to explore Cartagena.  It's really a wonderful city.  It has the look of the old town in San Juan or Panama City because there is a Caribbean vibe to it.  It is much bigger and has a much better wall around it than those two cities, though, and the architecture is very similar to the old towns I visited in Spain earlier this year. 

There are many black people because this was the center for the slave trading for this area and even had a monopoly on slave trading for the Caribbean for a number of years.  Almost everyone dealing with tourists is either black or creole--mainly women in colorful yellow, red and green dresses with matching head wraps and men carrying stacks of panama hats trying to sell them.

During the morning, I walked up and down the narrow streets watching the people and paying attention to the wonderful old buildings.  I climbed up on the walls and walked around a large part of the old section of town.  I passed university buildings (mostly in old convents and church buildings) with students flooding out into the sidewalks.  I went by the old slave market building Las Bovedas that now serves as an artisan market.  I passed theaters, plazas, and a construction site where the old bull ring was located and a new combination shopping center/theater is being built with the theater being a central plaza with tired seats reminiscent of the old bull ring--quite creative and inspiring.  I toured the local gold museum which had some wonderful pieces, explained how they used copper as an alloy with both gold and silver, and had a fascinating film about the area near here (where I will be visiting later when I am at Mompox) was built as a series of canals that took advantage of flooding at times of the year to provide a better chance of growing crops.

It's steamy and hot here, so I was back at the room around 14:00.  It was then that I discovered that no one really knew where my bag was and why it had been lost.  That's when I started making the calls mentioned at the top of this entry.

Afterward, I went to a local square that is an outdoor hangout in the area.  There were food stalls set up, and the area streets were lined with restaurants and shops.  One problem as a tourist here, however, is that prices tend NOT to be posted even in walk-in restaurants.  That's because they want to take advantage of tourists, so tourists end up having to bargain even to eat!!  I walked up to a stall that was making good looking burgers and asked how much they were.  The worker said 7,100 (about $2.40 US).  Then I walked over to some tourists who were eating burgers from there and asked what they paid.  They had bargained to get 4 burgers for 12,500 (about $1 each)!!  As I walked up and down the streets, I did study signs at the few places where prices were posted.  I was amazed to see paletas (frozen fruit-flavored pops) at a price of $1.75 US when they only cost 50-75 cents in San Antonio, but I also noticed that everyone walking into and out of that place was a tourist who didn't know better than to spend that much money for a cold treat. 

All of my exploring led me to a place with a promocion sign--two pieces of fried chicken plus a serving of french fries for 5000--the same price as a paleta at the shop frequented only by tourists!  I bought the special to go in a styrofoam box and took it back to the square where I found a place to sit among the other tourists and residents.  I ate my fries and chicken while watching the crowds, listening to music, and watching a juggler.

I was so tired, I returned to the hotel soon afterward and went to bed around 10:00--before the expected arrival of the flight from Panama City that was supposed to have my bag.
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I awoke this morning to find no emails about my bag.  I bathed, put back on my clothing for the third day, and opened the door to go down to breakfast.  There at the door was my bag!!  I went on downstairs where the owner's wife was so pleased that we had gotten my bag.  But she told me something that was still worrying about everything yesterday:  The bag had arrived at the airport at 14:00 YESTERDAY on the mid-day flight from Panama City!!  No one had made any effort to see if it was my bag.  No one had read the computerized notes made in the late afternoon about how to identify my bag and about the different tag number.  Only the call from the owner last night at 10:00 alerted them to the fact that they ALREADY had my bag.  It could have been delivered yesterday afternoon if anyone had thought to look at the name on the bag and to see if it matched the name of anyone who had reported a lost bag.  And it couldn't be blamed on the wrong tag number, because they had wrapped the old tag around the handle and attached another different kind of tag to route it here.  I had 3 IDs on the outside of the bag with my name and other information on them!!  So thanks to the owner's call late last night, they delivered my bag this morning.  If he hadn't called, though, it would probably still be setting in the airport here today since it could only be identified by my name and not by the traditional baggage tag which was wrapped tightly around the handle.

Another thought about the bag:  United had been wrong when they told me the bag had been in Houston and was going to be on the flight from there yesterday, because it was already HERE when I was talking to them!!  It has been a grand fiasco all along.  But I'm glad I have my bag now.

After another great breakfast--scrambled eggs with LOTS of delicious bacon scrambled into them, a plate of fresh pineapple, toast with butter and jam, a glass of fresh juice (not sure what kind), and coffee--I came back to the room to shave and change clothes before going back out.

I actually had seen almost all of the old town yesterday.  So today, I searched out a few specific sights I wanted to see but had only randomly passed them yesterday--a nice house where Bolivar lived, a small church with a Mudejar (Muslim-style) wooden ceiling, more theaters, etc. I spent more time exploring the small plazas I had seen yesterday while watching people and trying to stay cool--Bolivar (beautiful, crowded, but mostly quiet), San Diego (small, but lively with students from the university's school of arts and culture), Madrid (very small without much shade and mostly filled with local people sitting in the few shady spots, and Santo Domingo (big, but with no place to sit except in restaurant tables, little shade, and a GREAT Botero sculture of a nude reclining woman [big, of course] and the first of many Boteros I should see here in his home country). 

I spent the afternoon back in the room.  I am going back out in a little while to see the sunset from atop the city walls and to find something to eat for dinner. Then I will return to get organized for tomorrow which will be a travel day.