A Late Story About Flying Home

The return from Puerto Escondido was almost a month ago but life has thrown too much at me to resume the story. Now that I’m at home with something that feels like Covid-19 (but almost certainly isn’t) I have some time to write it out.

F & I grabbed our taxi from the beachfront and headed off to the Puerto Escondido airport. It’s a tiny airport and very strict about showing up early and about baggage. I had flown carry-on all the way there but the Interjet combined limit was 10kg for suitcase and purse. I had 11 something kg so I had to check it. Others were set up around the check-in area desperately trying to repack their stuff to get a backpack or diaper bag down to weight.

Our flight to Mexico City was quick and pleasant enough. We threw our luggage into a locker and found a tourist information centre because we had tickets to La Casa Azul aka Frida Kahlo’s house. The men told us to avoid the buses and aboveground travel because it was a holiday. “They take Valentine’s Day seriously here,” I thought.

We took a long subway routing that involved more walking than my toe was bargaining for. Then there was quite a walk to the house/museum from the last station. It was mostly through a beautiful, fragrant, colourful neighbourhood so that was bearable.

Frida’s house was the gorgeous cobalt blue I had seen in photos with beautiful courtyards and gardens. We were able to see some of her art, although they were mostly minor pieces. I imagine her well-known pieces are all in galleries or collections. There were photos of her with Diego and Trotsky, letters from Helena Rubenstein, then we entered the furnished parts of her home. There was Diego’s bedroom just off the dining room, a gorgeous huge kitchen with traditional wood stove, their painting room full of supplies and the mirror she used for her self-portraits (this area filled me with giddiness just to be where she created), her day bed with her death mask upon it and the night bedroom with her ashes in a Pre-Hispanic clay toad on the dresser. All of it was full of her art and personality, even though it was put together for display by someone else. Walking through and looking at her photos and clothes I finally had a sense of her as a person living in the space, as opposed to the artistic icon we see her as today. The gift shop was pitiful but the temporary exhibition was on her clothing and included the structural corsets she had to wear to protect her spine, which she frequently made into pieces of art. If I only had time to see one thing in Mexico City, I was glad that was it.

It was pouring when we left so we went looking for a taxi, but the few we saw were not near us enough to flag down. We started to walk but keeping our eyes open for a cab and my broken toe was deeply displeased with me. I was wearing old Birkenstocks and they were wet and sawing into the top of my foot. We made it all the way back to the subway stop through deep puddles. Down in the subway tunnels everything was packed so we thought we would take the women only cars. These lines were as deep as for the mixed cars. Each time a train came maybe two women from each line could get on, and sometimes not even that. We eventually got on and were crushed. There’s no AC on the Mexico City subway and the air is heavy and fetid. The train would go a bit, then stop for 10 minutes, then go , then stop in the tunnel in darkness for 5 minutes, then another stop where desperate women would try to cram in. We had a lot of stops and transfers to get back to the airport in time for our return flight and realized that, at this rate, we may cut it too close for an international flight. We got off at the next stop and spent the next 20 minutes looking for a cab. Nope. No way. The few we saw were full. F made the decision to use her expensive data and call an Uber. Even that was going to take a lot of time and money but we had no choice.

Back at the airport I saw on the news that a feminist protest against femicide, or the killing of women, had taken over the streets and the pink line of the subway. No wonder we couldn’t get anywhere. Was that the “holiday” the men were warning us about?

Mexico City airport has the teensiest ratio of gate chairs to fliers I have ever seen. We perched and stood and watched Air Canada personnel run past us to duty-free for booze. Around our boarding time there was a request for people to volunteer to gate check their bags because the plane would be full. I didn’t need anything in my bag during the overnight flight. I assumed I would just listen to podcasts and stare out the darkened window, as usual, so I volunteered. Then the plane didn’t board. We had already seen the crew so the plane was here. Were they all drunk on duty-free booze? I needed to make a connection in Toronto, as did my bag, so I began to be a bit concerned. Turns out those guys were off duty and they now needed a new crew to fly in and go through immigration. It took a bit over an extra hour to make that happen.

We boarded our half empty plane. Wait, I checked my suitcase for this? My seatmate realized there was no one in any of the middle rows and went to lie down for the duration of the trip.

We made it into Toronto even later than we expected. The wind goddess was not with us. I ran down to the luggage carousel before the connection to Ottawa and…nothing. The carousel stopped. Nothing came for any of us who had voluntarily gate checked. I ran to the baggage guy and bumped all the guys in line. “See all those people waiting? None of our luggage has come up and we all have connections. Here’s my number.” He seemed a bit huffy at my interruption and intensity but he called down and the nincompoop on the other end said, “Yes I have them. When do you want them?” Now! I ran back to the carousel and 10 minutes later I had my bag.

F & I ran like hell to connections where I bypassed the line again announcing, “We’re boarding!” The woman yelled back, “You have to check your bag!” What, it’s carry-on, but there was no time to argue. We entered the checked luggage room where 2 women crossed their arms and asked to see my boarding pass. I showed them the slip of paper Interjet had given me in Puerto Escondido but they weren’t having it, insisting it was a receipt. “It says Boarding Pass on it.” “Nuh uh, show it to the lady out there.” I ran back to the previous lady, interrupted her again and waved my paper. “This is a boarding pass.” “Uh, yes.” And I ran back to them. And noticed my suitcase was gone. They had let it go around on the carousel with no destination tag on it. “Not our problem.” F could see I wanted to behead them and drink their blood and she was doing a come on dance so I just followed her before I did anything criminal.

Then we got to connections security with our duty free. The woman there was moving in slo-mo, making seniors take off their shoes and belts with a sadistic smirk. When she saw that three of us in line had duty-free bags she slowed to almost a stop. She picked up each bag, slowly cut it open, swabbed each bottle repeatedly, ran the barcode through the scanner and taped the bags back up like she was doing heart surgery on a baby. She was pretty snarky with all of us and I responded in a like manner. I wasn’t proud of myself and the best I could hope for at this point in frustration and sleeplessness was to not say anything to miss the flight.

We did make it. Mainly because this flight was delayed as well. They made the same request for luggage volunteers but I had already lost my bag somewhere to the bowels of Pearson.

Finally in Ottawa, I waited in vain hoping my luggage found me. It did not, so I saw the much friendlier luggage guy here. He took the description and last known luggage tag and assured me I would get it back. On my return to gather F I noticed a few people staring desperately at the empty carousel, including a Chilean woman I met on the plane. I gated checked it when they asked for volunteers, she told me. “Oh, never do that. Go tell that nice fella all about it,” and I sent her to the nice baggage issues man.

Just like he promised I had my bag delivered to my house the very next morning.