Galapagos Islands Sans Toothbrush

Just yesterday I said I’d like to travel with only a day-pack. In retrospect, I might have picked its contents more carefully…

Do you ever say something and then wonder if the world is conspiring to make it true? Even if you didn’t mean it? For better or worse?

That’s how I felt when they lost my luggage. For two years, we have traveled exclusively carry-on only. We laugh at people as we walk past the luggage carousel (not out loud, that would be rude). But somehow, we found the world’s cheapest airline with the world’s most restrictive carry-on rules, and we were undone. They charged us an arm and a leg to check our bags that we very much wanted to carry on. So I grabbed my day pack with a sweatshirt and some headphones and headed to my gate. Maybe I should have grabbed my toothbrush.

We’ve all lost luggage before. It just kind of happens. We don’t know why. But it does. I suppose if we have to choose between the airlines losing our luggage or ourselves, we prefer that they lose our luggage. But it doesn’t seem terribly unreasonable to expect that they would keep track of both people and baggage. Oh well.

But this time, we lost bags flying into Ecuador from Colombia, twelve hours before taking another flight to get on a boat to tour the Galapagos. And here’s the punchline, here’s when our day reached its nadir or zenith—depending on your sense of humor—when the kindly woman with the N95 mask matter-of-factly informed us that our cheap-o airline did not send luggage on. We would simply need to fly back to Colombia to retrieve it.

"When are you planning to return to Colombia?"
"Never."
"Oh."
"So... I won't have my bag before we leave tomorrow morning."
"Um... No."

Good times.

I lost my razor, but on a boat on the Pacific Ocean, I wasn’t likely to shave anyway. I lost my charging cables, but we won’t have internet or phone service, so I’m not sure if it matters. I lost my jacket, but as we wave back and forth over the equator, that doesn’t seem catastrophic. I might miss having more than one outfit, but there is simplicity in only owning one shirt—I always know what to wear. My smelling bad is primarily other people’s problem, not mine. Shrug.

Somewhere in the English canon, there is a story of a scrivener who refuses to go away and can be viewed as the patron saint of passive-aggressiveness. That night we channeled our inner Bartleby and simply waited at the counter until the answer changed. It didn’t change quickly. But then there was a walkie-talkie call and a phone call. A stroll to the far side of the building that might have been fighting on our behalf, or just a trip to the baño. A supervisor was consulted with. Then he appeared. The airline was called. And called again. Meanwhile, we stood cheerfully and passively by the counter—never leaving.

We joked with the attendant, how can we be the five backpacks family without all of our bags?

In time—much time—the answer softened. Shifted. And eventually changed—almost too far—to the answer we had been looking for. The kind señora eventually started trying to figure out how to get our bags to our boat as we toured the Galapagos Islands. We gently stopped her there. That seemed like asking far too much. At the airport when we get back would be just fine—don’t fly too close to the sun. That doesn’t translate too well. It will be fine. Very grateful.

And it is fine.

As I sit here in borrowed clothes and hiking boots where I might want for sandals. It is fine. Tomorrow the boat will pass a small port town where I can buy a new toothbrush. That will be nice. But beyond that, I mostly feel like I massively overpack in general. That might sound funny since I live out of a backpack.

And to be fair, this is too bare-boned for sure. But you can’t deny that there exists a strange cycle of having that leads to wanting, leading to more having, that inexorably leads back to more wanting. And round and round again. Breaking that cycle has been one of the great joys of this journey.

Years ago, I owned a proper house. Like so many people, we had a junk drawer. You know. With stuff. That you might want, but probably won’t. Into it went all of the things that seemed like they might be useful, or at least we didn’t want to throw away.

Now I own two rubber bands. I know where they are. And if you break one, I’ll be down to one. For the next week, I’ll be on the lookout for another one. And it will come to me. Eventually. Somehow. Then I’ll have two again.

What was I talking about again? Oh yeah. Sitting on a boat wearing dirty clothes. Yeah. Not so bad.