More than 30 years ago, I took my first trip overseas without my parents to do an LSU summer trip in London. I left from DC on Pan Am to Paris on an employee pass which meant I was traveling first class for about $50 each way but on a space available basis. We were told we could only bring one suitcase, so I bought the biggest one I could find and stuffed it full. This was long before I became famous among my friends for being a savvy packer. Eventually I learned to get by even on long trips with one carry-on bag, made easier by the fact that I was still thin enough to wear a large scarf as a skirt or even a dress. The above photo is evidence that I have regressed and am no longer a savvy packer, but I digress . . . .
Anyway, I got bumped from the flight to Paris, but Pan Am put me on a flight to London and then arranged for me to connect to a flight on Iran Air to Paris. What they forgot to tell me was that as I was traveling on an employee pass, I needed to go find someone to get my suitcase off the flight to Paris. Oh well. I got to Paris almost 36 hours after I began traveling, and there was no suitcase. It had remained on the original flight and continued on through the Middle East, eventually making its way to Tokyo. You can imagine my delight when, after a week in which I wore the same increasingly grubby beige pantsuit with some shirts I bought at a flea market, the bag arrived.
I've traveled a lot in the last 30-odd years and I've never had another bag get lost. So it was with much surprise and dismay that I stood in the tiny Oaxaca airport and watched the itty bitty carousel go around and around with no bag in sight. But this time it wasn't my fault. In fact, I think the bag was deliberately left in Mexico City because our flight was so crowded and I could see that the luggage compartment was quite full when we boarded. But until this morning when the bag arrived, I wasn't sure if it was actually lost or just delayed.
Oddly enough, I had a bizarre dream last night that my bag was on the plane but had a hole in it which caused all of my clothes and shoes to fall out and rain upon the city of Oaxaca.
Thus began my first real trip into the heart of Mexico.
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