September 17, 2008
A long day. Really long. Not wanting to miss an international flight, we leave while the earth is still cooling. Four hours
waiting at LAX might as well be forty.
I manage to get 3 empty center aisle seats. Too bad the arm rests won't lift all the way. Some reading lights won't turn off,
others won't come on. Welcome to Avianca Airlines!
Other than fitful sleep on the way to Bogota, the flight is uneventful. This is followed by 2-1/2 hours waiting at the gate.
Little did I know that this is not the hot box I had expected in the coastal cities of Colombia. Bogota is at elevation and my
arrival is greeted by temperatures hovering around 50F. No heat in the terminal either. There I am in my t-shirt. No
sweater or jacket in sight. Ah, the joys of international travel!
Things get even more interesting with my connection flight to Cartagena. It seems that the pilot has the same sense of
direction I do: none. We land at the airport, taxi to the gate, and wait. And wait. Ten minutes pass and then finally an
announcement is made...in hurried Spanish, none of which I comprehend. I sense that the man next to me knows even
less English than I know Spanish.
Fifteen minutes more pass. The air is dank. People are fanning themselves. This ain't Bogota. Cartagena is an outdoor
sauna. What the f---? Have they forgotten how to open an airplane door? This ugly Norte Americano simply wants to get a
shower and plop into bed. Suddenly, we push away from the gate, taxi to the runway, and we're airborne. Even without a
translator, it becomes clear to me that our pilot got confused and set a plane down with 150 people in the cabin at the
wrong freakin' airport! There's no visible reaction from the other passengers. I want to ask, "Do pilots do this often here?"
Unfortunately, my Spanish begins and ends at "Hola," "Como esta?," and "donde esta el bano?" Twenty minutes later we
touch down at the proper airport. That's a first for me.
My taxi driver to the hotel is in a talkative mood. Maybe he was a tour guide in a former life. He's talking a million miles an
hour...a la Ricky Ricardo. A tentative "No habla" from me doesn't slow him down. I nod my head knowingly. "Si," I say. In
between attempts at pretending to understand this man, I look out the window to catch a glimpse at some pretty primitive
infrastructure - and this is the better part of town. Evidently there was a heavy rain a couple days prior. Some of the
streets are positively impassable with a foot or more of standing water. There is no discernible drainage happening. They
wait for evaporation to occur. We take detours. It is the way of things here. No one complains. I'm sure if they did, no
one would listen. I could attempt to describe the roads here, but why try? It would be feeble. It's probably akin to driving
on the moon, only rougher.
A long day. Really long. Not wanting to miss an international flight, we leave while the earth is still cooling. Four hours
waiting at LAX might as well be forty.
I manage to get 3 empty center aisle seats. Too bad the arm rests won't lift all the way. Some reading lights won't turn off,
others won't come on. Welcome to Avianca Airlines!
Other than fitful sleep on the way to Bogota, the flight is uneventful. This is followed by 2-1/2 hours waiting at the gate.
Little did I know that this is not the hot box I had expected in the coastal cities of Colombia. Bogota is at elevation and my
arrival is greeted by temperatures hovering around 50F. No heat in the terminal either. There I am in my t-shirt. No
sweater or jacket in sight. Ah, the joys of international travel!
Things get even more interesting with my connection flight to Cartagena. It seems that the pilot has the same sense of
direction I do: none. We land at the airport, taxi to the gate, and wait. And wait. Ten minutes pass and then finally an
announcement is made...in hurried Spanish, none of which I comprehend. I sense that the man next to me knows even
less English than I know Spanish.
Fifteen minutes more pass. The air is dank. People are fanning themselves. This ain't Bogota. Cartagena is an outdoor
sauna. What the f---? Have they forgotten how to open an airplane door? This ugly Norte Americano simply wants to get a
shower and plop into bed. Suddenly, we push away from the gate, taxi to the runway, and we're airborne. Even without a
translator, it becomes clear to me that our pilot got confused and set a plane down with 150 people in the cabin at the
wrong freakin' airport! There's no visible reaction from the other passengers. I want to ask, "Do pilots do this often here?"
Unfortunately, my Spanish begins and ends at "Hola," "Como esta?," and "donde esta el bano?" Twenty minutes later we
touch down at the proper airport. That's a first for me.
My taxi driver to the hotel is in a talkative mood. Maybe he was a tour guide in a former life. He's talking a million miles an
hour...a la Ricky Ricardo. A tentative "No habla" from me doesn't slow him down. I nod my head knowingly. "Si," I say. In
between attempts at pretending to understand this man, I look out the window to catch a glimpse at some pretty primitive
infrastructure - and this is the better part of town. Evidently there was a heavy rain a couple days prior. Some of the
streets are positively impassable with a foot or more of standing water. There is no discernible drainage happening. They
wait for evaporation to occur. We take detours. It is the way of things here. No one complains. I'm sure if they did, no
one would listen. I could attempt to describe the roads here, but why try? It would be feeble. It's probably akin to driving
on the moon, only rougher.