Day 1 is here!!! Our day started bright and early this morning and was going great until we got to the check-in counter at the airport. We tried to check in for our flight and the airlines check-in lady told us that she'd need to see our onward ticket from Colombia. We looked at each other....Um, what!?!?! We did not have any such ticket. (We later learned after some research that this was not uncommon for the airlines to request. Ooops, we didn't know.) We asked what we needed to do and she said we'd need to go buy a bus ticket or something proving that we'd be leaving the country before we'd be able to check in. So, Matt and I frantically Googled bus tickets out of Colombia and had no luck! Trying to search for tickets on an iphone using 3G while stressing out is not the best solution. After about 20 minutes we looked at each and decided we needed another plan. We asked the lady at the check-in counter how much the cheapest flight out of Colombia would be. She said about $115 each. We thought, fine, no big deal, let's do it, we don't have a lot of other options or time. Then she rings it up and says it's $258 each. Now, I know we were frantic and all, but my counting fingers still work pretty good and something didn't add up. We asked why it was so much more than she had just told us and she said, "Oh, must be taxes....". At this point, we had 12 minutes left before the deadline to check bags for an international flight. No time for questions (for now), we'll sort it out in our down time and accepted it to get the bags checked and on our way.
To add to the excitement, we noticed when we walked into the airport that the security line had over 100 people in it (at 4:00 in the morning!!!). The lady at the counter told us there was another line we could go to if we went back outside and down quite a few gates. We grabbed our boarding passes, barely got to say goodbye to our family, and started running to the other line. The other line was much shorter and we got to our gate in plenty of time, just to find out that our flight was delayed. We were supposed to have an hour layover in Ft. Lauderdale before we caught the plane to Cartagena. We ended up departing from Dallas 50 minutes later than our scheduled time, but figured we could make up some of it in the air.
We did, we landed with 45 minutes until the next flight departed. BUT, then we sat on the runway for another 50 minutes. We finally got off the plane 5 minutes after our next flight was scheduled to take off. Luckily the gate was right next to the other one and they held the plane for us. We were the last two people on the plane and as soon as we sat down, the plane took off. We made it to Cartagena without any more hiccups on the last flight. Phew!!
Talk about a fun way to start the trip :-). We caught a taxi to our hostel, got situated, and walked around the city to get familiar with our surroundings. From what we have seen so far, it is a beautiful city!! We will be exploring lots more in the next few days and will post pictures. Thanks for all the well wishes on our travels, we made it!!
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