We Came, We Saw, We Left

by Charles Wheelan

  Early in our Cartagena stay, our goal for the afternoon was to find an ATM machine. These are the kinds of modest goals that are sufficient to set in motion a Wheelan family adventure. In our defense, finding an ATM in Cartagena is harder than one might think. One legacy of the decades of violence in Colombia is that the ATM machines tend to be tucked in the back of stores and banks, rather than exposed to the street. We found an ATM on the second floor of a grocery store. In the small plaza outside, there was a guy holding a large machete in front of a wooden cart piled high with enormous avocados. I gave him the equivalent of thirty cents, and, in a brilliantly choreographed series of movements, he grabbed an avocado from the pile, hacked it in half with his machete, pulled out the pit, and then asked in Spanish if I wanted lime and salt. Yes and yes. The rest of the family did the same, and we sat on a cement wall in the plaza eating chunks of avocado with plastic spoons—the tropical equivalent of ice cream.

  We knew Rhonda would not be happy with us. One month earlier, the whole family had spent nearly five hours at the local travel clinic for our final medical prep, everything from tetanus boosters to prescriptions for malaria medicine and “just in case” antibiotics. A wellintentioned nurse named Rhonda gave us an earnest lecture on travel safety: don’t swim in fresh water; don’t pet stray animals; and no street food. When we bought our first empanada from a street vendor roughly twenty-five minutes into the trip, we paused to offer an apology to Rhonda. This would become a common refrain as we wandered the streets of Cartagena. “Sorry, Rhonda,” one of us would say between delicious mouthfuls.

  We spent our final evening in Cartagena in a small plaza near our apartment. During the day, we had barely noticed the place. It was a relatively small, nondescript patch of cement in front of a church where five narrow streets came together. Around sundown, as the heat of the day was dissipating, the food vendors opened their carts and the plaza began to fill: young couples, old couples, families, tourists, young boys doing gymnastics, and a few police officers keeping a casual eye on it all. Periodically the big doors of the church would open, casting a glow from inside onto the diverse groups of people assembled on the plaza. There was a ceremony going on in the church, perhaps a baptism or confirmation. At one point, a family came outside to pose for a photo, all of them dressed for the occasion, including a young daughter in a beautiful white dress.

  We ate, and we sat, and we ate some more: grilled kebabs, grilled corn, arepas (corn disks wrapped around cheese or any combination of meats), and, of course, empanadas. A store on the corner sold very cold beer by the bottle for about a dollar, less some change for bringing back the empty bottle. On a hot night with delicious food, the beer tasted like I was in the bleachers at Wrigley Field on a July afternoon. The plaza exuded a wonderful sense of community. We felt welcome, or at least not out of place. Among the five of us, we had four people with a working knowledge of the language. When we spoke in Spanish, the answer typically came back in Spanish, unlike, say, in France, where even decent French tends to elicit a response in English. “Colombia has been all pleasant surprises,” I wrote in my journal that night.

  Medellín had started out the same way. We boarded the night bus from Cartagena to Medellín, a thirteen-hour ride. The other passengers climbed aboard wearing down jackets and carrying blankets, as if we were headed to an Arctic research station. Fortunately, we had been warned that the buses in Colombia are air-conditioned to near-freezing temperatures. Team Wheelan wore layers of clothing.

  We also loaded ourselves with the maximum dosage of Dramamine. One of our defining characteristics as a family is a propensity for motion sickness. On previous trips, various members of our team had thrown up on boats, cars, and buses on five different continents, including a particularly unfortunate incident in Turkey when Katrina hit our tour guide with a projectile strike from the seat behind him. For all that, my niece Tess, who had proved to be an easy and delightful travel companion, took motion sickness to a new level. We quickly learned that she was at risk of getting sick on any mode of transit longer or rougher than an escalator.

  The temperature on the bus dropped into the fifties; we spent most of the ride in a Dramamine-induced hibernation and woke up to morning in Medellín, a lovely city built on the side of a mountain. The ride was easy, comfortable, and uneventful. We had created a blog so that friends and family could follow our progress, and I offered up a post with a title suggesting far more adventure than we had experienced: “The Night Bus to Medellín!”

  The Medellín bus station was an orderly, quiet place. We sat down to gather ourselves and immediately made an exciting discovery: free Wi-Fi at the Dunkin’ Donuts. This constant need to stay connected was both a surprise and a modest disappointment. When Leah and I made our first global backpacking trip in 1988, part of the allure of the trip was disappearing into exotic places. We picked up our mail once a month at American Express offices and called home rarely. For long stretches, no one knew where we were. The world is different now; that is the reality. The kids wanted to stay in touch with their friends through all the usual social media channels. Leah and I felt it would be unfair to haul them away from home for nine months and deny them that. Meanwhile, most of our travel logistics were accessed most easily online: maps; confirmations from our Airbnb hosts; TripAdvisor recommendations; and so on. Thus, it was a good start to our morning in Medellín when one of us discovered that we could get free Wi-Fi with no password by loitering just outside the Dunkin’ Donuts in the bus station.

  The day just got better from there. It was a Sunday, and Leah suggested that we walk to a park where there was a farmers’ market every weekend. Leah has the brain of the Phi Beta Kappa computer science major that she is, coupled with the patience of a human resources director. Before making a mid-career switch to teaching, she worked in the software industry, eventually starting her own consulting firm. During the start-up phase, she and I tried to share a home office. On the third day of this arrangement, I was writing while she was holding a conference call with her team of consultants, forcing me to overhear half of the conversation. “How do you feel about that, Michael?” Leah asked. There was some blather I could not hear, and then Leah said, “Gerry, what do you propose we do with the territory?” And then, “How does everyone else feel about that?” This went on for another half an hour.

  Eventually I exclaimed, “Oh my god! I can only hear half the conversation and it’s completely obvious to me what has to happen! They need to split the territory and share the revenue!” Leah covered the receiver and whispered, “Of course that’s what they need to do. But they need to come to that conclusion on their own.” I moved my office to a different room in the house that afternoon.

  Leah likes to balance the checkbook, whereas I assume that the bank will contact me if there is a problem. When something breaks around the house, I ignore the problem or bang on the object repeatedly. I once threw an undependable laser printer out the back door of our house, where it crashed into pieces on the patio. Our neighbor Jane was watering flowers in her backyard at the time; she never looked at me the same again. In contrast, Leah watches YouTube videos that explain things like “How to Replace a Range Top Burner Spark Igniter.” Leah likes guidebooks and she loves maps.

  Leah’s love of planning solved one of the most stressful things about travel, particularly low-budget travel: the constant decisions—every meal, every night of lodging, every bus or plane ticket. We had learned in traveling with other families that sometimes group travel works beautifully, and sometimes it makes me wish I were having dental work done. The difference lies in whether there is a shared vision for the experience. Do you get up early or sleep in? Do you cook at home or go out? Do you spend the day wandering aimlessly or visiting eight museums? Are you doing all of this on fifty dollars a day or eight hundred? Each one of those is a decision, laden with even more pressure because everyone expects their travel experience to be awesome. We had learned while traveling as a family over the ye
ars—it takes a lot of trips to throw up on five continents—that we travel well together. To deal with the incessant decision making, we adopted the benevolent dictator model. That was Leah, with our acquiescence and appreciation. She was also the budget czar, which meant that the activities she suggested generally conformed to what we could afford to spend.

  We left the Medellín bus station and walked uphill carrying our packs. The park was about a mile away; the uphill slog with all our stuff made it feel like ten miles. The weather was cool, but since Medellín is nearly a mile above sea level, we were soon struggling to catch our breath. I said nothing, for fear that Leah would hand me the Lonely Planet guide to Colombia and say, “Knock yourself out.” I suspect the others were thinking the same thing. Eventually we arrived in a large city park, a green oasis in the heart of the city. The farmers’ market was in full swing, with rows of stalls at which vendors offered fruit, honey, nuts, flowers, cheeses, arepas, and other enticing items.

  The farmers’ market was nice enough, and the park was lovely, but the most interesting thing was watching what Leah described as “Colombia’s beautiful people” go about their weekend in a public park. For the record, Colombia’s beautiful people are really beautiful. We bought some fruit and cheese and bread, yes, but mostly we sat and observed other people buying fruit and cheese and bread: families, young couples pushing strollers, friends meeting over coffee. One feature of the park was a sprawling flower garden that had been designed as a butterfly sanctuary. I spent the better part of an hour taking butterfly photos. The image I had of Medellín before we arrived did not include a butterfly sanctuary or yuppies buying artisan honey.

  We spent the next morning doing assorted tasks in our Airbnb apartment. The kids did schoolwork; I wrote in my journal and organized photos. Leah made a plan for the afternoon: We would walk to the central bus station to buy onward tickets and then take the metro to see a sculpture garden in central Medellín. The walk (downhill!) to the bus station went fine, including stops along the way to buy and eat assorted fried foods. We bought the bus tickets and then headed to the metro. The station was modern and orderly, but we arrived at rush hour and every train that pulled into the station was packed. At that point, just one week into our journey, we made one rookie travel mistake after another.

  Though we’d had time together on the platform, Leah had not told us where we would be getting off the train. Nor, to be fair, had we asked. A crowded train pulled into the station. I could tell immediately that only one or two of us would be able to squeeze on. Leah was closest to the train door, and she was able to push her way on. Just as she boarded the train, CJ, who was standing near a map of the metro system, yelled, “San Pedro!”

  I assumed this was our stop, so just as the doors were closing, I repeated loudly to Leah, “San Pedro.” The train pulled away. My niece Tess and I squeezed onto the next train. Katrina and CJ pushed their way onto a car several trains later. The five of us were now on three different trains. We would all get off at San Pedro and regroup.

  Or not.

  As I looked over the heads of the other passengers at a metro map posted on the wall of our train car, I could not find the San Pedro stop. I searched more methodically, checking every stop on every route on the whole Medellín metro system. Eventually I realized what must have been dawning on the rest of the family at about the same time on the other two trains: There is no San Pedro stop.

  Why did CJ yell, “San Pedro”? This question would be at the heart of the subsequent family investigation. For now, we were on three different trains with no idea where to get off. We all had devices that could be used to text via Wi-Fi, but only my phone had an international calling plan. That meant we could not communicate with each other unless we all had Internet access, which we did not have on our respective trains. Each of us responded to this situation in a way that made sense—though the collective response was problematic. Leah got off at the station nearest to where our overnight bus had arrived. Tess and I got off at San Antonio, which is a major hub for the system. Both Leah and I had the same idea: get off the train, find Wi-Fi, connect by text, and then designate a place to meet up. Unfortunately, CJ and Katrina—the ones who would go missing—had a different plan.

  The San Antonio platform where Tess and I got off was a bustling but orderly place with a handful of retail shops. There was no public Wi-Fi, but I could see on my phone that there was a private network for the station officials. I did my best to explain to an attendant that I had been separated from my family and needed Wi-Fi to find them. My Spanish was evidently good enough to get the point across; he took my phone and nonchalantly typed in the password for the private network. Soon a text popped up from Leah. She would wait at her station in case the kids turned up there; if not, she would take a train to where Tess and I were waiting.

  I waited for a similar text from Katrina and CJ. And I waited. Fifteen minutes became half an hour. What could the two of them possibly be doing? At first I was not even concerned, let alone alarmed. Medellín is a charming city. The metro system was clean and orderly. There were no nefarious characters lingering about our station. The fact that the trains were crowded with ordinary people going about their business was a good thing. How could someone kidnap two Americans from a crowded train? At one point, Tess sat down on the floor, resting against a wall. A security official hustled over and told her politely that sitting on the floor was not allowed. This made me feel better. Any place that takes security seriously enough to forbid sitting on the floor should be a safe place for two American teenagers.

  But where the heck were they? I began to feel more anxious. After an hour, I approached a transit police officer. “Mis niños son perritos,” I said. My children are puppies. The police officer quickly figured out that I was trying to say that my children were lost. He was kind but not overly concerned. I suspect he envisioned several unaccompanied toddlers riding the metro, perhaps a three-and a five-year-old, or maybe two infants left in their bassinets. “How old are they?” the officer asked. “The girl is eighteen,” I said in Spanish. He gave me a look that I can best describe as a combination of bemusement, confusion, compassion, and a healthy dollop of pity.

  “Can’t you just call her?” the officer asked earnestly. I explained that I could not, while simultaneously recognizing that “losing” an ablebodied eighteen-year-old did not make much sense. Katrina was old enough to drive, to vote, to serve in the military, and even to have a child of her own. The officer said something I interpreted to mean, “She’ll turn up.” As a courtesy to me, and perhaps to punctuate his own boredom, he agreed to have Katrina paged across the entire Medellín metro system. At the peak of rush hour, the alert went out. What I could understand of it was: “Spanish Spanish Spanish KATRINA WHEELAN! Spanish Spanish Spanish KATRINA WHEELAN!”

  Still nothing.

  Leah arrived at our station and we waited some more. We said relatively little to one another, and that was probably a good thing—no finger-pointing about whose idea this trip was or anything like that. The police officer would ask periodically if we had heard anything. He did not seem particularly concerned about the missing Americans. Because a guy responsible for security on the Medellín metro was unconcerned, I felt better. But as we reached the ninety-minute mark, dark thoughts began creeping into my mind. What could they possibly be doing? It had taken Leah only fifteen minutes to find Wi-Fi and connect with me. Why were Katrina and CJ still missing after an hour and a half?

  They were on their way to San Pedro, it turns out. No, there was not a San Pedro stop on the metro. There was, however, a San Pedro bus stop in a distant part of the city. Because of a youthful combination of teenage self-righteousness (Katrina) and idiocy (CJ), the two of them were determined to make it to San Pedro. I should pause here and answer the crucial question at the heart of this whole debacle: Why had CJ yelled San Pedro in the first place? What was he thinking?

  Nothing, apparently. The subsequent official investigation—
a family discussion over dinner during which Leah authorized extra spending on margaritas—revealed that CJ had yelled San Pedro for no particular reason. I had assumed he was standing near the metro map because Leah had sent him there to gather information. Wrong. In fact, Leah had sent him to look at the map because he was being bothersome and she thought it would occupy him. To recap, CJ was standing near the map for no real reason, and then he yelled, “San Pedro!” for no reason, and yet he and Katrina decided that was where they should go.

  Which they did. They got off the metro at the station closest to San Pedro—which was not close—and then began walking. And walking. I presume the folly of their plan dawned on them when they reached the San Pedro bus stop and did not find us there. They had no money for a taxi, so they walked back, eventually finding a Starbucks with Wi-Fi where they sent us a text. According to the pedometer on CJ’s iPod, they had walked 9.5 miles.

  Over dinner, we reviewed our “rookie mistakes”: taking the metro at rush hour; not making sure we all knew the stop; not having a plan if we were separated; not giving enough money to Katrina for a taxi; and so on. We were rusty. And we had missed all the major sites in Medellín. “We need to understand how Katrina and CJ got lost so it won’t happen again,” I explained.

  “We weren’t lost!” Katrina declared. “We knew exactly where we were the whole time!” She then expounded on the distinction between the words “lost” and “separated,” a point I was willing to concede. CJ did not care how we described what had happened. He was talking effusively about how cool the pedometer app was on his iPod. “We walked ten miles,” he said proudly.