Lost and Found
After almost two years of Corona still not many countries allow travellers to come in without any restrictions, nor would they put any requirements on their presence like a longer quarantine period. Peru was one of the few exceptions, no PCR test needed, no quarantine, and a lot of interesting places to visit, like Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca or the Amazonas river and rainforest. So we decided to go there.
We found a KLM flight of only 15h from Berlin via Amsterdam to Lima and were lucky to have found a very nice apartment on the 12th floor at the beach. Travelling light, I only had my backpack, a daypack and my brand new Canon 850D SLR camera.
But I hadn’t even set a foot into the apartment yet when I noticed that my luggage wasn’t complete anymore. My backpack was in the booth of the taxi, my daypack on the seat next to me, but where was the camera? Under the seat in front of me! But not in the Taxi but still in the airplane! NOOO! That can’t be true!
But I wasn’t dreaming. I hurried immediately back to the airport. Hardly anyone speaks English and entry wasn’t allowed without valid ticket. Somehow I managed to get into the airport. But no help. No KLM counter, no “Lost and Found”, no entrance into the baggage area. I was told to come back next day at 4pm, as all KLM people were gone. What a sad start of the holidays! So I went back to the apartment crying as I was sure there won’t be any camera tomorrow. On the next day I tried to get in contact with KLM by phone or social media but got no help. The people here speak Spanish only and my Spanish is poor, no one could help. Online they told me to go to the “Lost and Found”. Was there any?
I was tried to persuade the concierge in the lobby to make a phone call to the airport for me as I could not talk to them in Spanish. A flight assistant who was waiting for her taxi was listening and understood what I was trying to tell the concierge in English while he only spoke Spanish. She offered her help. She told me that there is, indeed, a lost and found area and she wrote down for me some sentences in Spanish explaining my situation and asking for the “Lost and Found”.
With that I went to the airport later at 4pm, and showed her writing to the security guys outside. It worked and they let me in, guided me to the information desk and from there to the “Lost and Found”. But my camera was not there.
They told me to speak to KLM directly but as they saw that I could not do that without having a working phone nor Spanish skills, they did the call for me. And really, they got hold of the KLM staff and handed the phone to me. The person on the phone spoke English and after some checks it turned out KLM really had found my camera! I was over the moon. A couple of minutes later a KLM person came with my camera and handed it back to me! I could not believe my luck! I was the happiest person in entire Peru that moment! I could hardly believe that I really held my camera in my hands again! We celebrated that evening with a nice meal and cocktail near Kennedy Park in the beautiful area of Miraflores.
