January 21, 2016

Leaving Panama........

So far all our blog posts look like fun and games! But I have to be honest, it has had it's challenges at times. Not with the company, that goes without saying that we love Rich and Tina to pieces. The biggest challenge has been travelling all this time without pre-made plans.  Anyone who knows Michel and myself knows that this is kinda how we do it... have to say this has probably been the biggest challenge for Rich and Tina, not knowing what comes next.....

Yesterday and today were two of those challenging days. They ran into one long day ..... Michel and I booked a flight to Quito, Ecuador for this morning. When Rich and Tina went to book the same flight there was some sort of technical problem and we weren't able to do it. So we all checked out of our hotel in downtown Panama and headed with our luggage to the airport to get this done. It's impossible to make a long story short, but in the end they ended up with the same flight we had, but for double the money. This should have been a good thing, BUT ... when we got to our rooms and checked our email we discovered that the reservation we had made required a confirmation, which didn't get done in a timely manner so our booking was cancelled. And we couldn't re-book because there was less than 10 hours to flight time. So now we had no flight!

We were all back at the airport at 3:30 am, so Rich and Tina could catch their 5:10 flight which went from Panama City to Bogota, Columbia (4 hour lay over) then on to Quito, Ecuador. In the mean time we tried to book a flight, but we couldn't get a flight at any time for anything near the same price.  In the end we booked a direct flight with a different company for quite a bit more money, leaving at 11 am and getting in around 2:00 

That's not the end of it.... Rich and Tina's had to change planes in Bogota to end their journey. In the mean time they sent us an email letting us know that they had booked a room and would meet us, because they had no idea when we would be arriving.  As it turned out, they arrived at the hotel about an hour before we did.........our angels always watch over us.