The Luggage Dilemma

28 November, Sunday evening; Somewhere between Nairobi and Nakuru, Kenya. To a weary traveller, especially one in a foreign country, seeing other travellers leave with their bags while you wait, wondering if yours will arrive, feels like the most agonizing time ever. When it’s the third flight without your bags arriving, it’s three times as agonizing. After spending the day at a cafe at the Nairobi airport, we made our way to the arrivals hall, having to get official passes this time. We watched as two truckloads of luggage were emptied onto the carousel, none of which contained our bags. My heart beat with more and more anticipation with each bag that was emptied onto the carousel. My stomach was churning with nervousness. If the bags could just be on this flight, all would be great and the day wasted at the airport would have been worth it. By our calculations (we were nearly experts by this time), there was only one truckload left, placing our remaining odds at 33% chance of success. As the third truck pulled up, I could faintly make out the design of my bag on the top and quickly ran over to Ben to exclaim with such fervour that I thought I could see my bag. Ben quizzically searched for it and after what seemed like forever, he gave me the thumbs up and gleefully pointed at the conspicuously colored “Remove before flight” luggage tag that is affixed to all our bags. I was giddy with delight as Ben picked my bag off the conveyer belt. Our next step was crossing our fingers that Ben’s bag accompanied mine on the flight. Thoughts were pouring through my head. First, the pure delight that my bag was here. My sleeping bag, my clothes, my, well, everything. I was comforted just thinking about it. Second, what would we do if Ben’s bag didn’t arrive? I tried to put it out of my head and kept talking to the girl standing next to us who is working on a project with Harvard to do some kind of community project. I feel bad for not remembering, but my head just wasn’t into it. Finally, Ben shot me a glance of happiness and I knew we were set. We grabbed his bags and set off to let the airline know we got our bags. Unfortunately, my handle was damaged along the way, so that meant filing a claim. At least I know that Osprey will fix it for free, though we will have to mail them the bag. After everything that we went through already, I just can’t be bothered to worry much about it. We are now headed to our campsite in Nakuru National Park in a “safe” taxi. We missed a trip to a local orphanage and an afternoon game drive and endured a stressful 24 hours, but I’m overly joyed just to have our bags. Now our safari can start. I never thought I would look so forward to sleeping in a tent in my life. I just can’t bring myself to say the same for using the drop toilets, but I’m definitely glad that we didn’t have to figure out alternative options. Bring on more adventure, albeit with our bags, passports, money, health and safety (roughly in descending order).