Saturday 2-28-09: Leaving Quito, Ecuador

On Saturday, Yolanda made us one last breakfast and then we took a cab to the airport. She was in her pajamas and she refused a picture as she had done a few times before. It seems we always try to catch a picture when her hair is not done. I do regret not getting a picture of her on our trip, but I can say we certainly tried.

When we got to the airport, we found out that Avianca, our airline for the Quito, Ecuador to Bogota, Columbia part does not have an agreement with American Airlines (AA) that would allow them to connect our luggage through for the AA Bogota to Miami part. So they told us that in the 1:40 lay-over that we had in Bogota, Columbia we would have to go through immigration, claim our luggage, go through customs, and check-in at the American Airlines desk at least 45 minutes before the flight. We were SO stressed and I was pretty sure that we would miss our flight and be staying the night in Bogota since AA only had the one flight out of Bogota on Saturdays. The flight staff even told us that we would probably miss our flight!

When we actually made it through everything and checked in on-time, we bought a little bottle of Columbian rum to celebrate!

My parents picked us up in Miami, we had dinner in Ft. Lauderdale and then headed home to Jupiter for some kitty loving (Yay! Samantha!) and some much needed R&R.

Foot note: Avianca is a great airline with lots of comfy amenities and free tech/entertainment and free good food. We would definitely recommend them for South American travel as long as you are not trying to connect with American Airlines.