An Expensive Lesson

Yesterday was Saturday and the plan was to visit Laguna Huaypo about 30 minutes outside of our town of Urubamba on the way to Cusco. We had heard that you could rent paddle boats at the lake and we looked forward to seeing water and enjoying the day as a family. We got all packed up and finally hopped on a colectivo around 10:30am. Colectivos are public transportation vans that hold about 16 people and only cost 7 soles per person to travel the 90 minutes from Urubamba to Cusco (even if you get off early). The kids sit on our laps so we don’t have to pay for them.

We got off at the road to Laguna Huaypo and started walking until a taxi came by that we waved down to take us the rest of the way to the lake (about 5 minutes by car). But as soon as we got in the taxi I realized with dread that I didn’t have my phone in my pocket…and that is when I clearly remembered setting it under my leg while getting the kids situated in the van and never grabbing it when we got out. We had no idea what to do. Our taxi driver was so nice, and wanted to help, but we weren’t sure if we should head back to Urubamba or toward Cusco so we sent him on his way and used Don’s phone to reach out to our friend who lives in Urubamba to beg for her help.

Our friend Nicole agreed to head to the station in Urubamba to see what they could do from that end, but she felt that there was really little to no chance of getting my phone back since phones went missing constantly in Peru and it was so easy to piece them out for parts and make money on them that they almost never got returned. At the station the guys working were able to send a message to a WhatsApp group that all the drivers were on, and upon Nicole’s suggestion, we had them offer $100 USD as a reward for returning our phone…$50 to the driver and $50 to the passenger. We waited at the lake anxiously while occasional texts came in from Nicole that explained all the reasons we were likely out of luck. Poeple get on and off the vans all the time and it was probably already gone. No one was answering the phone when we tried calling it. My texts don’t show on the lock screen so there was no way to tell a potential thief that there was a reward. And then, after a painfully long 10 minutes of silence, there came a text that read: They have it.

I couldn’t believe it. I had begun to cry a few minutes before as I slowly let myself think through the consequences of losing my phone. I knew the worst part…I had over 700 photos from the first 5 weeks of our travels that lived on my phone and weren’t backed up anywhere. All those memories, lost forever. And then there was the phone itself…very expensive, fully paid for, and without insurance. Not to mention all the ways I use my phone hundreds of times a day: for work, maps, communication, translation, as a camera, note taking, checking weather, making reservations, etc. etc. etc. But then this text came through and with it a flood of hope.

Nicole told us they only agreed to hold the phone for us if we came immediately with the cash reward. We had just under $100 USD on us (in soles), so we had a nice lady call a taxi for us and we begged the kind young man to drive us safely, but quickly, all the way to Cusco. We arrived at the station and I ran in tears to the manager (I was told to look for Roland) where I explained the situation. To my amazement, he called for the driver and out of a parked van came a man with my phone in hand. I hugged him (despite his protests) as I handed over his 180 soles and then a young couple walked up and I quickly surmised that they were the passengers that had found the phone. I offered them all the money I had left and when they seemed less than satisfied I began to show them pictures of the kids on my phone and through sobs and broken Spanish I explained how grateful I was to have it back. The woman warmed up immediately and they left a few moments later with smiles on their faces and close to $40 USd in their pockets.

I’ll never know if the passengers had found the phone with intentions of keeping it, or if they only looked for it when the driver announced the situation to everyone on the bus, but I know for a fact that, unfortunately, the phone would not have just been returned out of the kindness of everyone’s hearts. It took all our remaining soles to get my phone back, but the lessons learned are priceless.

Last night, after the kids were soundly asleep in their room, we took some measures that should have been taken at the start of our trip. We backed up my photos to my computer (with a plan to do so weekly because I’ve chosen to have my computer back up photos to the cloud instead of my phone), we adjusted our settings so that messages can be seen on the lock screen and we created screensavers in Canva that say in Spanish that there is a reward for the phone if found. We also assigned the kids the responsibility of asking us each time we get out of a vehicle if we have our phones with us. They see it as a challenge and a responsibility so we hope they will act as one more safeguard against the possibility of this ever happening again.

And now we are off to Laguna Huaypo once again, in hopes of having a more successful, and drama-free, visit to the lake.

My new lock screen wallpaper: