With a successful event in Caracas in the books (more on that later), we headed off to the airport toward our next stop: Bogota, Columbia. The process started off OK, with only some minor confusion. We were told the flight was delayed for an hour or so but that just gave us a little more time to get food in the airport, no big deal. As we sat around waiting, checking the departures board regularly, we received several conflicting pieces of information. The flight was delayed but Michael’s flight app still alerted him that the flight was boarding. A panicked run from gate to gate revealed that they were not boarding but instead giving out sushi vouchers. A little more waiting before we were eventually ready to board. The airport is smaller than most major cities so we had to take a bus from the gate to the plane and board from the tarmac. Once on the plane, the most helpful pilot ever informed us that the flight plan had changed. We were supposed to fly from Caracas to Bogota with the plane and then continue to Quito. Because of the delay, the airline decided, based on the number of passengers going to each place, to fly directly to Quito and THEN to Bogota. While this was annoying, it wasn’t the end of the world. The major adventure started when we were then told that the flight would be staying in Quito overnight. This was no Bueno. There was lots of explaining and, to his credit, Michael generally kept his cool. It came down to us refusing to get off the plane until we had another flight booked. We eventually had another flight booked and made it to Bogota. The silver lining to all of this? We got to meet Miss Caribbean 2012.

Paul Swider had no problem with our flight delay. (Photo Joel Oleson)
John Anderson wrote re: STP 2013 Northern South America: The Adventure Continues on Tue, Sep 10 2013 11:04 AM

Never a dull moment on an STP Tour!  ; )